Bailouts

I had the best economics teacher in high school. I feel like I learned a lot from that class, especially about economic theories and things like that. I am utterly perplexed and confused about the kind of "capitalism" we are practicing and defending. I don't really have a dog in the fight, so to speak, so I'm not going to share my opinion, nor do I even have one, but this does not seem like capitalism to me. I don't feel the need to defend capitalism or condemn whatever it is that we are practicing, I just want to call this what it is. I yearn for honesty in our country, a value that doesn't seem to be shared often enough. So... I have some questions that these bailouts, in theory and practice, have led me to think about:

1. How did these huge corporations get so powerful that our entire economy will fall apart if they go out of business?

2. If our economy is dependent and run by specific corporations, what kind of economic system is that? The means of production are no longer in the hands of private citizens, but large companies.

3. How can anyone defend bailing out corporations but no individual families or people that are in need? Is this a double-standard, or do we really thing that helping the companies really helps the people more than just helping the people directly?

4. How will letting large corporations go out of business ruin our economy more than throwing billions of dollars at them, when they have proven that they can't run their business effectivly enough to stay in business without the government's help? I really don't understand this way of thinking at all...

5. Will letting some big companies go out of business reduce competition and lead to other companies monopolizing their industry?

These are just my thoughts and questions. It seems like people are so reluctant to help individuals because they might take advantage of the system, but we don't seem to care about compaines doing the same think with much more money... I don't get it.