[syr74]

That wasn't a bailout. The Fed acts as a lender of last resort during tough economic times in order to make certain that the economy doesn't collapse altogether. It's a safety measure meant to make certain that when banks wont do their job, which is to see that money is distributed and circulated, that job still gets done.

As such the Central Bank loaned money to organizations which should have been able to borrow from private banks but couldn't because the banking system wasn't really working. The happy side of this is that the Fed typically makes a great deal of money doing this, and they did exactly that this time around.