This post by Roy Oppeneim was originally published in Yahoo! Homes and is being redistributed on South Florida Law Blog with their permission.
My friends, the drumbeat is growing louder and louder. Each and every day another voice is joining the chorus.
Soon, I hope, it will be impossible for even the most devout pro-Wall Street politician to ignore.
It’s time to end Too Big To Fail, and there’s only one way to do that. Get out the hammer and break up the banks. Make them manageable and accountable, and remove the stranglehold they have on our economy, our politicians, and our government.
I’ve been banging away at my little cymbal, telling anyone who would listen that breaking up the banks is the path regulators ought to be taking. But I’m not exactly one to carry a tune, so not much has changed.
Bruce Springsteen (aka The Boss), who has always had the pulse of the working man, has championed a return to community banking. Even that didn’t have much impact on the national conversation.
Thankfully more and more rational voices are joining Springsteen’s “band.” The latest is author Michael Lewis. While reviewing former Goldman Sachs executive Greg Smith’s new book, Lewis comes to this conclusion: “The financial sector is already so gummed up by government subsidies that market forces no longer operate within it… Along with the other too-big-to-fail firms, Goldman needs to be busted up into smaller pieces.”
Michael and I must have been drinking from the same fountain in Econ 101 in college. (I sat behind him throwing the occasional spitball.)
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