By Simon Johnson, co-author of 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and The Next Financial Meltdown

After months of denial, the European policy elite finally begins to understand that something is seriously wrong in the eurozone.

But the prevailing definition of the problem is still too narrow – the consensus in France and, even more, in Germany is that “this is a Greek problem”.  Even the most negative still think that Portugal and Spain can easily escape serious damage.

This is a major misconception, as we pointed out last week – and as we have been emphasizing, to anyone who would listen, for more than a year. Continue reading “Expect Nothing” →

By Simon Johnson, co-author of 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and The Next Financial Meltdown.  This post also appears on pbs.org/needtoknow – as part of that new TV program’s coverage of the week’s issues.

There is widespread agreement that the financial crisis which broke out in September 2008 was our most severe in over 50 years.  There is also a consensus that, whatever other factors may have been involved, the excessive risk-taking and general mismanagement of huge banks at the center of our economy played a significant role in what happened.  (Yes, of course the largest banks themselves deny any responsibility – including most recently using insulting language.)

The financial reform package now on the Senate floor puts surprisingly little constraint on the activities of our largest banks going forward – preferring instead to defer to regulators to tweak the rules down the road (despite the fact that this approach has gone badly over the past 20-30 years).

A growing number of senators insist we should do more to reduce the size and limit the leverage of megabanks (i.e., the amount that banks can borrow), arguing that this would constitute an important additional failsafe – on top of all other efforts to establish “more effective regulation”.

Senator Ted Kaufman (D, DE) has led the charge on this issue, pounding away for months – and giving another powerful speech on the floor of the Senate yesterday.

Yet, astonishingly, it seems increasingly likely there will be no real Senate debate on this issue. Continue reading “Fake Debate: The Senate Will Not Vote On Big Banks” →

 By Simon Johnson

On Friday, Senator Bob Corker (R, TN) took to the Senate floor to rebut critics of big banks.  His language was not entirely senatorial: “I hope we’ll all come to our senses”, while listing the reasons we need big banks.  And Senator Chris Dodd (D, CT) rose to agree that (in Corker’s words) reducing the size of our largest banks would be “cutting our nose off to spite our face” and that by taking on Wall Street, “we may be taking on the heartland.”

Unfortunately, all of their arguments in favor of our largest banks remaining at or near (or above) their current scale are completely at odds with the facts (e.g., as documented in our book, 13 Bankers).

The senators led with the idea that our nonfinancial sector needs huge, complex, global banks in order to remain competitive internationally.  But this is completely untrue – in fact, Senator Dodd conceded as much to Ezra Klein recently when he said that he had heard the arguments of 13 Bankers against big banks also from “CEOs” (presumably of nonfinancial companies). Continue reading “Why Do Senators Corker And Dodd Really Think We Need Big Banks?” →