>Those reserves both inflate asset prices and enable the banks to make loans on which interest is paid
Banks don't need those assets to make loans. Banks can make loans whenever and where ever they want, and can simply borrow from the Fed. This is the point of short-term interest rates - banks can lend past reserve requirements whenever they find a decent loan to make. It's the difference between exogenous and endogenous theories of money, and modern economies with central banks usually work this way to allow the market to decide how much money is needed, not how much reserves a bank can obtain because a central bank absorbed assets.
And most loans rate people get are tied pretty directly to Fed rates, not bank reserves. This is again due to endogenous money creation - demand creates money, not reserves. So the Fed and banks having 0 reserves or having 100 trillion reserves is nearly irrelevant - it is interest rates that matter, and those are set directly by the Fed board.
Also, if you recall, the banks were famously not giving loans after the bailouts, despite having the capital to do so [4]. I guess that also doesn't help your claims.
>they pay interest on a loan enabled by that 2T+ expansion
If you're going that far afield, then it's simple to point out what financial trouble they would be in if the Fed didn't make those loans. People would likely be far worse, in which case it makes the argument for those loans even stronger.
It would be interesting to check even correlation between Fed balance and interest rates.
Here's [1] an IGM Forum economist poll of most of the country's top economists on whether or not the bailouts improved unemployment. I'd guess being unemployed is worse than claimed interest rate hikes.
Here's [2] their answer to the question: "the benefits of bailing out U.S. banks in 2008 will end up exceeding the costs" - resulting in strong support with certainty (especially considering the types of questions these polls ask - check other questions).
So there's not much real argument on the bailouts being beneficial.
Now that the Fed is selling off MBS [3], shouldn't that cause the reverse of what you claim absorbing them did? Because those effects are not see in the markets. Maybe your effects did not happen?
[1] http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/bank-bailouts
[2] http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/bailouts-banks-and-automak...
[3] https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttren...
[4] https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/economic-synops...