I am not particularly outraged; the major job of a central bank is to be a “lender of last resort.”
I think calling them “bailouts,” while true, is overly emotional and a good way to misunderstand the issue. And the issue is, during the worst of recession, credit froze. Without credit, many—most, even—businesses cannot function. Your supermarket probably orders food each week on credit, for example.
So, that was very bad. Like, that’s the understatement of the century. It’s also the entire reason why the Fed and other central banks were set up. If normal banks lack capital to loan money to businesses, the Fed is designed to loan them money. You can call this a “bailout,” but it’s a necessary failsafe to protect the economy from complete ruin.
Now, $16 trillion, almost none of it having been paid back? I call bullshit. I love Bernie Sanders but I will need to see further corroboration of this claim before I believe it.