Sheila Bair: Shareholders Should Demand That Big Banks Break Up

Fortune:

America is downsizing. Whether it's the food we eat, the cars we drive, or the houses we live in, Americans are concluding that smaller is better. Even U.S. corporations are starting to see the benefit of more Lilliputian institutions; the impending -- and widely hailed -- breakups of McGraw-Hill (MHP) and Kraft (KFT) are two examples.

Read the whole story: Fortune

Comments

[unfoxworthy]

12:04 AM on 01/19/2012

Sheila Bair has been on the front line of this issue from day one.
She gets it.
Banks got bailed out - the people who bailed them out are deadbeats?
My neighbors? My friends? I think NOT!
I demand CLAWBACK
I demand "CHANGE" from a president who promised it.
I march with my fellow Americans who get it. I Occupy with them.
We will not forgive.
We will not forget.

[jo smith456]

08:40 PM on 01/18/2012

BETTER: 1) Break-up the Fed Reserve!!! 2) Break-up the big banks; 3) Full Transparency on hedge-funds, like that of mutual funds; 3) "Equal Access by all to Market Real time Data (" high frequency trading and 'co-location' strategies should NOT be the monopoly of a few trading companies...); 4) PROSECUTE wall-street-law-breakers (not just penalty payments);

BEST: NO POLITICAL LOBBYING Allowed -- No "election finance contribution" (a.k.a. VOTE BUYING....)

[casino capitalism]

08:45 PM on 01/18/2012

Excellent list!

[pinetrale]

08:37 PM on 01/18/2012

Since the government won't regulate, they want the shareholders to magically do it. oh my!

[4eva]

06:45 PM on 01/18/2012

No bailouts, no subsidies ... ever.
Then you'll see these big entities break up on their own to be more efficient and profitable.

Otherwise, there is no incentive for shareholders to demand they 'break up'.

[JPHR]

04:36 PM on 01/18/2012

The bloated financial "industry" has proved to be an illusion created by fraudulent accounting. The share of that industry of national GDP exploded from 2000 to 2008 and the implosion actually got it back to its proper size.
Performing diverse activities under one roof increases the difficulty for analyst to value the total correctly. Whether or not to combine all activities under one roof is a trade off between transparency and synergy an in term of risk management internal compensation for the cyclic variation of individual business lines..
Mrs. Bair advocates this from the point of view of shareholders. However prevailing over that should be the interest of society, which she correctly evaluates as ineffective given congress. Looks to me that lacking action of congress mrs. Bair ought to be recommended for advocating this on a line of reasoning understandable/acceptable to shareholders.

[CSNC]

04:21 PM on 01/18/2012

"Sheila Bair: Shareholders Should Demand That Big Banks Break Up"

We do, we do, we do.

Do they listen? No, No, and No.

H

[Ed Baker]

03:54 PM on 01/18/2012

"Too Big to Fail" banks should not exist in the first place. We should never allow ANY institution to exist that could be so large as to be a threat to OUR economy, let alone the GLOBAL economy. This is a strategic weakness and should not be tolerated, ever.

What if the CEO of one of these corps goes through some psychiatric trauma and he decides to take out his pain on the world?

Allowing these institutions to exist is WORSE than allowing Soviet missiles in Cuba.