The Banks Are Still Too Big To Fail

Simon Johnson was unimpressed by the President's financial regulation speech:

The administration will not tell anyone the exact capital and liquidity requirements they are proposing, but close observers of the internal administration process have taken to calling the likely increases “dinky.” Remember, the last time our financial system showed this taste for risk and a comparable level of incompetence (prior to 1935), it had equity relative to assets roughly three times current levels (e.g., put into tier one-equivalent terms). There is no proposal on the table, either in the U.S. or within the G20, that is even remotely in the right ballpark. President Obama has put his finger on the problem but is apparently unwilling to do anything about it.