Were banks really selfish?

In past year, dozens of banks became extinct and few others were acquired by larger banks. CDOs were largely the reason for that. Biased radio programs and political newstalk blame that CDOs were by-product of selfishness of bank management. I beg to differ. Think for a second... Do you really beleive dozens of banks which existed for a long time suddenly started becoming selfish ? And that too, all at the same time?.. That just can't be true and is not true at all. What really happened was that new financial products fundamentally changed the way banks lend money. Free market proved that sometimes they don't work.

People these days look at big banks like Bank of America, Citigroup and other financial companies like AIG and Lehman brothers as evil entities. Reality is that it's only remote divisions in these banks which were involved in subprime lending. However, these small divisions burned down the whole companies.

Bail the banks out and we'll all be better off. (or) At least keep the banks afloat for a long time to come. I don't want to go to a Govt office to collect my check. Do you remember the last time you went to a Driver's license office... Did u like that experience?