Financial Debate Renews Scrutiny on Size of Banks

The largest financial institutions have only grown bigger, mainly as a result of government-brokered mergers. There is no attempt to break up big banks as a means of creating a less risky financial system. Richard W. Fisher said, "The disagreeable but sound thing to do regarding institutions that are too big to fail is to dismantle them over time into institutions that can be prudently managed and regulated across borders." This means that banks are to big to fail. The government helped them and made them even bigger and cushioned them. It is now even harder for smaller banks. Maybe the thing to do is break them up. However, it will be hard during this when the United States is in a great recession. These banks are inefficient and may be valuable if they were smaller then making them bigger.