"...The ultimate problem with bailouts is that everyone seems to think there's a free lunch."

There isn't. 
 
You can rob someone to pay someone else, but you can't conjure up money from nowhere. 
 
But bailouts inherently wind up taxing the people who got robbed in the first place
to pay off the people who made the bad bets and lost money. 
 
...the people get robbed...when they are taxed to fund the bailout!
 
There's nothing like getting stuck up at gunpoint and not only losing the hold-up money
but then being taxed a second time to pay for the robbery in which you were victimized!
 
Karl