Too-big-to-fail lives on

Posted by Al Lewis on March 01, 2013
Washington

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke offered only hedged assurances to the Senate Banking Committee that the perverse doctrine of too-big-to-fail was going away.

Taking a grilling from Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts this week, Mr. Bernanke said getting rid of too-big-to-fail – the expectation that certain large banks would be bailed out because they are systemically important – would take more time.

“I assure you that … I would very much like to have confidence we can close down a large institution without causing damage to the rest of the economy,” he said.

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