Unlikely Critic Says Banks Still Too Big To Fail, Pose 'Nuclear' Risk to US Economy

A former Goldman Sachs executive—one credited as an architect of the 2008 banking bailout—said Tuesday that the country's largest financial institutions are "still too big to fail and continue to pose a significant, ongoing risk to our economy."

In his first speech delivered as the newly appointed president of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve, Neel Kashkari "came out swinging," Business Insider reported.

He likened the risk posed by big banks to that of a nuclear reactor, noting: "The cost to society of letting a reactor melt down is astronomical."

"Enough time has passed that we better understand the causes of the crisis, and yet it is still fresh in our memories," Kashkari said at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, D.C. "Now is the right time for Congress to consider going further than Dodd-Frank with bold, transformational solutions to solve this problem once and for all."

To that end, Kashkari continued, "the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis is launching a major initiative to develop an actionable plan to end [too-big-to-fail, or TBTF], and we will deliver our plan to the public by the end of the year. Ultimately Congress must decide whether such a transformational restructuring of our financial system is justified in order to mitigate the ongoing risks posed by large banks."

Among the solutions he floated: "breaking up large banks into smaller, less connected, less important entities" and "turning large banks into public utilities by forcing them to hold so much capital that they virtually can't fail (with regulation akin to that of a nuclear power plant)."

Read more at Disinfo.com

If you can't convince them - Confuse them

Deception is a state of mind - and the mind of the State

Terrorism is a psychological warfare to create fear and division

End the wars in your minds .. Liberate and Love each other ..

a reply to: DisinfoCom

IN OTHER WORDS, when SHTF this time around, we've already used up all of our extra lives and we're (You and I) just going to have to eat it while the banksters and wall street insiders simply move their assets around and actually get richer.

What a sad, twisted system it is

a reply to: DisinfoCom

Interesting - so is he an outlier who won't gain traction, or is this something which could actually come to pass? I've been wondering, if we did break up the banks into smaller entities, wouldn't they be likely to all fail together if a failure event came to pass? So for example, instead of a single $500B failure, we would have 500, $1B failures? It's not as if separate, smaller banks would have drastically different policies, would it?

There are many reasons smaller banks would be better, but I'm just not sure whether it would be much of a defense for the general economy against TBTF.

a reply to: DisinfoCom

Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me, you can't get fooled again.

- old saying from Tennessee, U.S.A.

a reply to: DisinfoCom

So if banks were too big to let fail, last time, why did we allow them to get even bigger during the bailout? And then feed them a steady diet of near zero borrowing? This next crash is going to be bad, the central banks don't have any more arrows to use.

All by design..

If something has not been properly maintained over time, that something will build up until it can't hold itself any longer and collapse upon itseld.
Unless something else, is done to preserve it, and bring balance back into that thing for future.

So what are the "TBTF" jackasses doing? They kind of have two options. ..

1) let it collapse

2) change the system

They have already given many hint the rules have changed and they are no longer playing by the existing rules.
In America, that nation is no longer what it was built upon. The fore father's know not of the technology and accomplishments we have achieved beyond their timeline.

Everything is different, and the game has changed. It's been official, I think the entire 2012 symbolism was the hint of a new direction for our world. Or the end of an old world/way of living.

Ever watch The Matrix? The Merovingians always win, and they choose the program everyone else participates in.

Wake up people. Who cares what banksters say? They lie as any lizard with a forked tongue..

Here's some interesting information concerning the sizes of the "Big Four" banks, based on assets, pre-financial crisis till 2015:

J. P. Morgan:
Before 2008: $1.6 Trillion
2015: $2.6 Trillion

Bank of America
Before 2008: $1.7 Trillion
2015: $2.1 Trillion

Wells Fargo
Before 2008: $575 Billion
2015: $1.7 Trillion

Citigroup
Before 2008: unknown
2015: $1.9 Trillion

Note 1: The data for pre-crisis valuation is based on this paper from the Brookings Institute. This data is detailed in the context of the major banks growth due to its acquisitions of other banking entities. Citigroup did not acquire any other banking institutions due to the crisis, so no pre-crisis data was available for them.

Note 2: The 2015 data is presented as total assets by bank according to this Wikipedia page. This data was ostensibly acquired from the Wall Street Journal.

According to the Brookings paper, most of this asset growth was due to the US government's "encouragement" of these large institutions to acquire smaller, more troubled, banking entities.

Also according to that paper, banks today are more liquid and less dependent on risky assets than they were before the banking crisis of 2008, presumably due to the Dodd-Frank legislation.

Make of it what you will.

-dex

How long before he commits suicide?

Or wakes up with a pillow over his head?


I really do think we're winning the information war. As the collective mind of America works to educate itself and raise its consciousness so will our leaders.

Keep raising awareness!