Who <em>Else</em> Wants to Break Up the Big Banks?
July 25, 2012 10:26 AM
"I'm suggesting that they be broken up so that the taxpayer will never be at risk, the depositors won't be at risk, the leverage of the banks will be something reasonable."
Sanford Weill, former chief executive of Citigroup.
(Image: Bloomberg News)
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"Breaking these companies into separate businesses would double to triple the shareholder value of each institution. …The financial giants have mixed profitable and client-centric services with the higher risk, more volatile and opaque investment banking and trading."
Phil Purcell, former chief executive of Morgan Stanley
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"It wasn't that there was one or two or institutions that, you know, got carried away and did stupid things. It was, we all did… And then the whole system came down."
John Reed, former chairman of Citigroup
(Image: Bloomberg News)
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"Unfortunately, I was one of the people who led the charge to try to get Glass-Steagall repealed. ... I regret those activities and wish we hadn't done that."
David Komansky, former chief executive of Merrill Lynch
(Image: Bloomberg News)
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"The two worst votes I made in the 18 years I've been in Congress were, the Iraq war, which was very unnecessary and the repeal of Glass-Steagall… isn't it time to have a discussion and a debate about the reinstatement of Glass-Steagall?"
Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C.
(Image: Bloomberg News)
"Hordes of Dodd-Frank regulators are not the solution ; smaller, less complex banks are. We can select the road to enhanced financial efficiency by breaking up TBTF banks-now."
Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas (Image: Bloomberg News)
"The public-policy benefits of smaller , simpler banks are clear. It may be in the enlightened self-interest of shareholders as well.
Sheila Bair, former chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (Image: Bloomberg News)
"The greatest threat to the banking system is concentration in banking in this country. It's not the economy itself; it's the fact that we have fewer and fewer banks allocating resources in this country."
Tom Hoenig, FDIC board member and former president of Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City (Image: Bloomberg News)
"Big banks represent the ultimate in concentrated economic power in today's economies. They are able to resist all meaningful reform that could really change their compensation schemes. Their executives want to get all the upside while facing none of the true downside."
Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, and co-author of "13 Bankers" (Image: Bloomberg News)
"As president, I will break up the big banks , end future taxpayer bailouts, and restore capitalist principles - competition and creative destruction - to our financial sector."
Jon Huntsman, former governor of Utah and U.S. Ambassador to China, and former GOP presidential candidate (Image: Bloomberg News)
"If we're going to prevent big banks from putting our entire economy at risk, we need to place sensible size limits on our nation's behemoth banks. We need to ensure that if banks gamble, they have the resources to cover their losses."
Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio (Image: Bloomberg News)
"It is hard to see how the existence of institutions that are 'too important to fail' is consistent with their being in the private sector. Encouraging banks to take risks that result in large dividend and remuneration payouts when things go well, and losses for taxpayers when they don't, distorts the allocation of resources and management of risk. "
Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England (Image: Bloomberg News)
"One of the major components of any serious Wall Street reform has got to be breaking up the largest financial institutions in the country. The time has come to do exactly what Teddy Roosevelt did back in the trust-busting days and break up these huge financial institutions."
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. (Image: Bloomberg News)
"Downsizing too-big-to-fail institutions and the risks they pose to the financial system could not be worse than taxpayers spending trillions of dollars propping up these firms and federal officials, not the free market, picking winners and losers."
Camden Fine, president of the Independent Community Bankers of America
