One year ago, after the fall of Lehman Brothers, the U.S. government made a series of massive moves to restore stability to the financial system. And it's clear that those actions saved the American-and thus the global-economy from total collapse (and another Great Depression).

The financial system bounced back so fast that the government will likely recover almost 90 percent of the funds it committed during those months, yet the policy remains very unpopular. Why?

Governance is sometimes about practical realities. Had the financial system gone under, the American economy would have come to a standstill. It very nearly did.

(READ the Op-Ed by Fareed Zakari in Newsweek)