Simon Johnson and Robert Reich: Use Antitrust Laws to Break Up Too Big to Fails
Courtesy of Washington’s Blog
I have previously argued that we should use antitrust laws to break up the too big to fails.
Since I made that argument, economists Simon Johnson and Robert Reich have both said the same thing.
Specifically, former head IMF economist Simon Johnson wrote:
Increasingly, the issue of “too big to regulate” in the public interest is being brought up – an issue that has historically attracted the interest of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division in sectors other than finance. Should Goldman Sachs now be placed in this category?
And former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich wrote yesterday:
Neither the draft bill, nor the Committee, nor anyone on the Hill having anything to do with financial regulation, is raising what I consider to be the two key reforms necessary for avoiding another financial meltdown — resurrecting the Glass-Steagall Act that once separated commercial from investment banking, and applying antitrust laws to the remaining five biggest Wall Street banks so none is "too big to fail."
