I'm old enough to remember when most financial institutions were privately held. Such a structure goes a long way toward assuring that the guys taking the risks have their own skin in the game -- and more than just a bit of stock at that. It used to be at firms like Goldman Sachs that the ownership was made up of working (general) partners and retired (limited) partners. When your personal net worth and more is on the line you tend to seek out all of the facts and make good business decisions.
If the FED wasn't around to keep interest rates artificially low and, as a result, cause irrationally exuberant stock market performance, perhaps similarly irrational decisions to monetize these firms wouldn't have been made. As it is, every trading department is just a giant call option priced artificially low to the traders that they employ.
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