Via The Big Picture and Ritholz comes Nervousness in over banked Europe Go no further than the following two charts to understand why markets freaked out over Dijsselbloem’s comments.    Europe is way overbanked and vulnerable to financial sector shocks.Even in the so-called “safe haven” Switzerland the banking system is outsized relative to the country’s GDP.  […]

by Linda Beale Addressing TBTF with tax and other policy: because “Big Banks Go Wrong, Pay Little Price” The New York Times today reiterated what many Americans lament–Big Banks went uncharged for serving as the main engine of the Great Recession that cost ordinary Americans jobs, homes and futures.  See Andrew Ross Sorkin, Big Banks […]

Via Bloomberg comes this snippet from testimony between Senator Warren and Ben Bernanke.  Follow the link as the embed does not seem to work. Partial Transcript via Global Economic Trends Warren: These big financial institutions are getting cheaper borrowing to the tune of $83 billion in a single year, simply because people believe government would […]

Update:  Dealbook at the NYT interviews the producers of ‘The Untouchables’. Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism comments begin: Lanny Breuer, former Covington & Burling partner and more recently head of the criminal division at the Department of Justice, resigned abruptly today. The proximate cause may be a Frontline show that ran two nights ago, part […]

Jon Ogden at Switch Your Bank offers a graphic picture of too big to fail.  Lifted from an e-mail response to me…: The units on the left axis are total assets in billions. So, yes, the total domestic assets of these 4 US megabanks grew from nearly $4.5T in 2007 to nearly $6T in 2012, […]