Top Economists, Financial Experts and Bankers Say We Must Break Up the Giant Banks

Bernanke: “Too Big To Fail Was A Major Source of The Crisis, and We Will Not Have Successfully Responded To The Crisis If We Do Not Address That Successfully”

 

Current Fed chairman Ben Bernanke said yesterday:

“Too Big To Fail is not solved and gone,” he said during a press conference. “It’s still here.”

***

“I agree … 100 percent that it’s a real problem,” he said.

***

“Too Big To Fail was a major source of the crisis,” he added a little later, “and we will not have successfully responded to the crisis if we do not address that successfully.”

Bernanke joins the following top economists and financial experts who believe that the economy cannot recover unless the big, insolvent banks are broken up in an orderly fashion:

  • Current Vice Chair and director of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation – and former 20-year President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City – Thomas Hoenig (and see this)
  • Former Federal Reserve Bank of New York economist and Salomon Brothers vice chairman, Henry Kaufman
  • Dean and professor of finance and economics at Columbia Business School, and chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush, R. Glenn Hubbard
  • Former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund, Simon Johnson (and see this)
  • The leading monetary economist and co-author with Milton Friedman of the leading treatise on the Great Depression, Anna Schwartz
  • Economics professor and senior regulator during the S & L crisis, William K. Black
  • Professor of entrepreneurship and finance at the Chicago Booth School of Business, Luigi Zingales
  • The Director of Research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Harvey Rosenblum
  • Director, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn, and Professor of Economics, University of Bonn, Martin Hellwig

And the head of the New York Federal Reserve Bank – and former Goldman Sachs chief economist – William Dudley says that we should not tolerate a financial system in which certain financial institutions are deemed to be too big to fail.

Federal Reserve Board governor Daniel Tarullo also backs a cap on the size of banks, and Former Treasury secretary under Reagan and George H.W. Bush, Nicolas Brady, says that we need to put a cap on leverage.

Top Bankers Call for Big Banks to Be Broken Up

While you might assume that bankers themselves don’t want the giant banks to be broken up, many are in fact calling for a break up, including:

  • Former managing director of Goldman Sachs – and head of the international analytics group at Bear Stearns in London- Nomi Prins
  • Numerous other bankers within the mega-banks (see this, for example)
  • Founder and chairman of Signature Bank, Scott Shay
  • Former Natwest and Schroders investment banker, Philip Augar
  • The President of the Independent Community Bankers of America, Camden Fine

Indeed, a bipartisan consensus is forming regarding the need to break up the big banks. Click here for background on why so many top bankers, economists, financial experts and politicians say that the big banks should be broken up.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

What's been said:

Discussions found on the web:

Posted Under

Uncategorized