Take a look at the Fed Flow of Funds. Home values in the aggregate exceed bank equity in the aggregate by many, many multiples. Without all the money poured into the housing market by the government in the last 2 years, home prices would be much lower than they are now. The gvt injections may have prevented bank equity from going all the way from a trillion or so down to zero, but they held home values up by many, many trillions above their true (unsupported) value. Homeowners are receiving by far the largest amount of benefit from the govt bailouts. Do the math.