We judged that a sudden, disorderly failure of Bear would have brought with it unpredictable but severe consequences for the functioning of the broader financial system and the broader economy, with lower equity prices, further downward pressure on home values, and less access to credit for companies and households.

This crisis exposed very significant problems in the financial systems of the United States and some other major economies. Innovation got too far out in front of the knowledge of risk.

The choice is between which mistake is easier to correct: underdoing it or overdoing it.

Timothy Geithner Quotes