1. I imagine you screaming a in a high-pitched voice as you type this, like a little girl who's seen a spider. This is incredibly-foolish - it's regulation, not a socialized banking system. To think otherwise is deeply stupid.

2. Because bankers have done such a great job running these institutions, right?

No in any way. Bush never had the kind of power that Obama holds, especially in the once private sector.

Sounds good to me. If this crisis has taught us anything, it's that any firm which is 'too big to fail' is a ticking economic time bomb. Failure is only a matter of time, so make sure the giant isn't so huge that he crushes the rest of us beneath him.

And I'd say centralized regulation is a pretty far cry from "running all financial institutions." I don't think stricter reporting standards and higher cash reserves are going to cripple the banking industry.

You must have skipped over that chapter in Capital.

/sarcasm. When did conservatives become so overdramatic?

No, since 1981.  Reagan started the evisceration of regulations that kept those overpaid assholes in check.

To be fair, Clinton signed Gramm-Leach-Biley in 1999, which didn't help. But yes, deregulation started with Reagan, and from the moment George W. Bush took office, the SEC, EPA, FDA, pretty much any regulator you can name, decided that protecting the American people was less important than protecting Republican fundraisers.

It also sounds like what Geithner wants is a far less brutal tool than just revoking a charter. After all, the goal here is to cut the giant down to size before he falls over, not to push him over and hope that the collateral damage isn't too bad.

Basically, it sounds to me like he wants the power to slice up banks like the Supreme Court sliced up Standard Oil almost a century ago.

Well, that's not good. I think the government needs to just stay away from the private sector, not tighten it's grip on it.

My mayor has Obama beat though. At the senior breakfast (basically food, awards, and graduation practice all in one morning), she got up and actually told us that she wants us to get rid of term limits. Yes, she said she wants to GET RID OF TERM LIMITS. Thank God she's nearly out of office for good.

If too big to fail means that the company requires periodic taxpayer financing, they should definitely break these institutions into smaller pieces.

Think about it... do you, as a taxpayer, want to be on the hook for bailing out failing companies which can cause a meltdown?

All I can say is "about time."