Four years after Bailout, Banks are even bigger

After a lot of hot air from Congress and the administration on the subject of Too Big to Fail, Bernie Sanders and Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) have submitted bills in the Senate and House mandating the breakup of financial institutions that can, by virtue of their size, cause a financial meltdown and also have a permanent get out of jail free card.

"The bill would require the Treasury Department within 90 days to determine what financial institutions meet the "too big to fail" label and enjoy implicit government support. Among those banks that must be included on the list are Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo.

Then, the government would have one year to break up those institutions so that "their failure would no longer cause a catastrophic effect on the United States or global economy without a taxpayer bailout." The bill does not detail exactly how the banks should be broken up.

The legislation marks the latest attempt by lawmakers to tackle the "too big to fail" issue, which has lingered on a topic of discussion years after the financial crisis and passage of Dodd-Frank. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, as well as some regulators, have pointed out that massive banks still enjoy a discount when it comes to raising funds, an indication that financial markets believe those institutions enjoy implicit government backing that would become realized if the institutions faced collapse.".