Housing finance, leverage and interconnected institutions transmitted losses through the financial system and into employment and household wealth. Rescue decisions created lasting disputes about who was protected and who absorbed losses. Power question: which institutions became so consequential that governments felt compelled to support them, and what incentives helped create that position? Avoidance question: could less concentrated intermediation, stronger loss absorption or different housing- credit incentives have reduced the scale of failure? Lab proposal: compare network concentration, leverage and resolution designs; report household and public costs separately.