Yet it is deemed shocking to suggest those who financed the company should suffer losses.

In “free-market-based capitalism” — or at least the version they used to teach when I went to business school — lenders and shareholders were supposed to monitor the risks taken by companies. They would benefit if the company prospered and suffer if it failed.

By not spending more money on safety, Tepco was taking a risk. That risk did not work out. The question now is who will pay the bill. If it is the investors, that would serve as a powerful incentive to the other nuclear plant operators to make changes. If it is the government, with investors protected, we are left with only the hope of better regulation to prevent a recurrence.

Tepco shareholders have suffered, but the shares are still worth something, if you believe the stock market. Tepco lenders seem to think they should be allowed to collect every yen they would have received if nothing had happened. Maybe even more, since this could serve as a reason to charge higher interest rates to utilities.

That is, more or less, what happened to most bank investors in the financial crisis. The American government chose not to rescue Lehman Brothers, a fact that stunned investors and precipitated a panic. In the aftermath, it was considered too dangerous to even question the safety of bonds issued by banks. A suggestion they could bring losses might have caused more banks to fail. So while bank shares fell sharply, bank bonds did not default.

In Ireland, it was even more absurd. Bailing out collapsing banks left the Irish government unable to pay its bills without a bailout of its own, and forced it to embark on a bitter policy of austerity that has hurt every citizen. But senior bondholders of the failed banks are being protected, and it was considered a victory that subordinated lenders agreed to take partial — not complete — losses.

In the United States now, there is anger that few bank executives have faced criminal charges. Perhaps more charges should be filed, but excessive risk taking, in and of itself, is not illegal.