There has been a great deal of chatter recently about too-big-to-fail. The presidents of two regional Federal Reserve banks – in Dallas and Kansas City – are calling for the end of government support for and the breakup of systemically dangerous financial firms. The defenders of these Wall Street giants have responded by saying that our nation's economy and international competitiveness will suffer if we break up too-big-to-fail institutions.
But consolidation in the banking industry and the emergence of financial institutions with explicit government guarantees against failure haven't exactly contributed to an economic boom. It's been just the reverse—they triggered an economic collapse.
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. Taxpayers should never underwrite the mismanagement or overreach of any firm. If it comes to that, the firm and all stakeholders should be wiped out—just like too-small-to-save banks are on Friday nights.
We've been down this road before.
Teddy Roosevelt understood the implications of too-big-to-fail and systemic risk in his day. In the early part of the last century, Roosevelt and Attorney General Philander Chase Knox sought to break up the "trusts," which were choking the economy, stifling innovation and competition, and hurting consumers and taxpayers. Following the breakup of industrial monopolies, the economy and job market flourished. Three decades ago, the breakup of AT&T led to a renaissance of innovation, competition and job creation in the communication sector.
The United States became the greatest nation on earth not because we had the biggest banks but because we had the most robust free markets. The Japanese learned the folly of "bigger is better" the hard way—and so did we three years ago. Oligopolies and asset concentration strangle competition and stifle innovation, job creation and free markets.
Our 10 largest banks may employ 1.1 million people today, but how many will they lay off as they struggle to maintain efficiencies in the future?
And consider how many more could be employed by the dozens of spinoffs dismantling these behemoths would create—not to mention the enhanced competition and benefits to consumers.
So I applaud those who are speaking out and working to restore balance and truly free markets to our nation's economy. They are tired, and so am I, of watching the government, instead of the free market, pick winners and losers—keeping taxpayers on the hook for a handful of firms that put us all at risk.
Camden R. Fine is the president and CEO of the Independent Community Bankers of America.
It is short term funding and excessive (trillions mind you) in OTC derivatives. Stablize the funding (liquidity rules under Basel III) and get the Big Banks off their addiction to OTCs (OK for hedging) in the trading book
The failures of Lehman, Bear were due largely to short tern funding issues due to collateral calls. Citi and other TBTF needed TARP due to negative MTM on their OTCs on funding issues in the repo market.
Boring but benefical lending, and deposit taking.
the average american is little impressed by the alarmist rationale used to defend "bigger is better" in order to compete on a global lending stage. The profitability of TBTF's on the global markets is of no concern to US citizens. Today the widely-held view is that these banks have taken on utility-like government support. It takes no great genious to borrow money from central banks at near zero interest rates and lend it to consumers --or Spanish provinces at 7%.. That has the earmarks of utility-like guaranteed income streams. The sense is worsened when the added layer of government support is tacked on--a check valve that provides a shield from failure if the rogue bad bets lose. Thus today the average man on the street sees the situation of TBTF banks as a guaranteed income stream--justified for utilities by heavy regulation of monopolistic service providers--but without the ceilings borne by utility profits.
we have reached the intolerable situation wherein bankers expect a guaranteed income stream---protection for common equity holders against bankruptcy loss no matter how incompetent the betting parlor operayors become--but with limited regulation afforded enterprises that are otherwise regulated by a marketplace that punishes excessive risk-taking by commensurate high cost of capital.
The TBTF banks have achieved a status of exemption from all norms of business concepts. Monopoly-earnings protection without the brakes of heavy regulation and capped earnings--ie a rational cost of capital environment. Stated simply its as if these were high rollers going to Vegas with the confidence that the wheel will never hit losing slot. This encourages excessive risk -taking----in fact the greed factor drives the taking of risk in this heads i win-tails you lose "business" environment. The blatantly obvious wrongheaded nature of this distorted "economic" thinking is that the entire future cash flow of the TBTF is based on political risk. It suggests the success of these TBTFs is premised on political corruption. It suggests that the jig could be up at any time a new scandal comes to light--and the roof collpses --a simple example of the absolute dependence of a company's success on political risk factors is FSLR.
The existence of the TBTFs undermines confidence in the economic structure of the country as well as of the system of government itself. The demanded competitive equality og TBTFs with foreign banks could otherwise be described as a call to create a national [nationalized] bank if it is necessary for US operating companies to obtain capital for overseas adventures. Most US companies can peddle their own debt---so perhaps its merely the influence of the TBTF at stake. As a country--the role of banks is to facilitate REAL TRADE--not become a substitute for it.