Big Banks Are Suddenly Afraid -- Why?

Banking District (Photo credit: bsterling)

 Top executives from global megabanks are usually very careful about how they defend both the continued existence, at current scale, of their organizations and the implicit subsidies they receive. They are willing to appear on television shows – and did so earlier this summer, pushing backagainst Sanford I. Weill, the former chief executive of Citigroup, after he said big banks should be broken up. Typically, however, since the financial crisis of 2008 the heavyweights of the banking industry have stayed relatively silent on the key issue of whether there should be a hard cap on bank size. This pattern has shifted in recent weeks, with moves on at least three fronts.
William B. Harrison Jr., the former chairman of JPMorgan Chase, was the first to stick out his neck, with an Op-Ed published in The New York Times. The Financial Services Roundtable has circulated two related e-mails “Myth: Some U.S. banks are too big” and “Myth: Breaking up banks is the only way to deal with ‘Too Big To Fail’” (these links are to versions on the Web site ofPartnership for a Secure Financial Future, a group that also includes the Consumer Bankers Association, the Mortgage Bankers Association and the Financial Services Institute). ... Continue to read.

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• Citigroup CEO opposes breaking up banks (sfgate.com)
• Break up big banks, former Citigroup CEO Sanford Weill urges (democraticunderground.com)
• Citigroup's ex-CEO Sandy Weill does an about-face on big banks (bostonherald.com)