Years after the 2008 financial crisis, America is still arguing over how to address Wall Street’s “too big to fail” problem. Here is another perspective, based on history: there is only one choice.
Neel Kashkari, the current Minneapolis Fed president and former Goldman Sachs banker who led the US Treasury’s bank bailout program in 2008, says that major banks are still “Too Big to Fail,” and that we should consider breaking them up. I’m sick of these crazy ideas from radicals who don’t understand Wall Street.
The near-collapse of the global financial sector in 2008 was our periodic reminder that banks that are “too big to fail” are a threat to the public. Now, seven years later, some action is being taken.
New rules proposed this week would require the world's biggest banks to hold more capital, in an effort to (begin trying to) put an end to the "Too Big to Fail" dynamic. If this doesn't work we can always smash them.
The price tag for making the "Too Big to Fail" banks somewhat more stable could reach $870 billion. Before the banks complain about this cost, they should consider the alternatives.
A new government report on the persistence of the implied "Too Big to Fail" guarantee for major banks finds that the advantage for those banks has declined since the recession, but TBTF still exists, which is why we should still break up the biggest banks, so they can fail in peace.
America now has 6,891 federally insured banking institutions. That's the fewest we've had since 1934. Though it may cause reflexive distaste, it is a fact: we could use more banks.
Moody's has cut the credit ratings of several big Wall Street banks, because it's less confident that the government will bail them out if they fuck up. Baby steps.
A small handful of huge Wall Street banks are quite literally Too Big to Fail: the failure of any one of these institutions would rip such a large hole in the global economy that we'd all fall in and break our necks. In times of trouble, therefore, these banks will always, always, always be bailed out by the public—…
As part of the new Basel III financial regulatory standards, certain banks deemed "systemically important" will be required to maintain higher core capital ratios, draw up plans for their own hypothetical unwinding, and keep a certain amount of highly liquid assets on hand lest another crunch come around. You can…
Gosh darn it, she really just isn't going anywhere. Also today: Some really great reality show ideas sound really great, including one with Heidi Klum "interacting" with your children. Plus news of the economy!
This is fun: Paul Kedrosky has assembled a list of books about the financial crisis which contain the most instances of the word "fuck." Surprisingly less than we expected, given the topic. Full list, after the jump:
Alice in Wonderland will make a lot of money. HBO wants to make a movie about the financial crisis, Deepak Choprah is pulling a Sarah Palin. Pet Sematary is back. This trade round-up not built on an Indian burial ground.
New York Times wunderkind Andrew Ross Sorkin makes $250,000 a year — including a Wall Street-like bonus based on how his DealBook blog performs — even as newsroom layoffs loom. No wonder everyone hates him.
The success of New York Times business reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin's tome Too Big to Fail has provoked a debate in the fractious newsroom: is he a plugged-in wunderkind or an in-over-his-head cub reporter who mooches off his veteran colleagues?
First Andrew Ross Sorkin pissed off Charlie Gasparino. Now it's his colleagues: Some anonymous New York Times staffers are angry at him, Keith Kelly reports, for failing to credit the newspaper's scoops in his new book, Too Big to Fail.
Andrew Ross Sorkin's Too Big To Fail describes, in intimate detail, the days leading up to the collapse of the biggest financial institutions in America. Did the men in that room pull us from the brink or push us over?
