You can stop reading after the sixth paragraph:
A new paper from Patrick Sims of Hamilton Place Strategies, a policy and communications firm led by Bush administration White House and Treasury official Tony Fratto, amounts to a case for the big banks. (Hamilton Place counts major banks and their trade associations among its clients).
Layman's translation: Don't break up our clients because it'll be bad for our consulting business.
Now granted, I'm no economist, but it seems to me that a pretty good rule of thumb would be: If any single financial institution---or any single corporate entity, for that matter---has grown so enormous that its failure would implode the entire global economy, that would suggest that a breakup is in order. Unless we want to max out systemic risk across the banking system, which means that yes, in flush times the banks will yield generous returns for their investors---and in bad times, either taxpayers will come rushing in with trillions more in bailout relief, or it's the financial equivalent of nuclear winter for the rest of us. I really do believe that there's a better way.
---Baron V
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