““The solutions to this systemic risk overhang are surprisingly straightforward. The immediate tasks would be to break up large banks and ban most derivatives. Large banks are not necessary to global finance. When large financing is required, a lead bank can organize a syndicate, as was routinely done in the past for massive infrastructure projects such as the Alaska pipeline, the original fleets of supertankers, and the first Boeing 747s. The benefit of breaking up banks would not be that bank failures would be eliminated, but that bank failure would no longer be a threat. The costs of failure would become containable and would not be permitted to metastasize so as to threaten the system. The case for banning most derivatives is even more straightforward. Derivatives serve practically no purpose except to enrich bankers through opaque pricing and to deceive investors through off-the-balance-sheet accounting.””
