Larry Summers defending his big bank buddies

Huffington Post (Shahien Nasiripour ):
President Barack Obama's top economic adviser defended megabanks Thursday, arguing that breaking them up serves no purpose and that a proliferation of smaller banks would instead make the financial system "less stable."

The remarks stand in sharp contrast to those being made by the presidents of at least three regional Federal Reserve banks, one Nobel Prize-winning economist, top bank regulators in Europe, and former Wall Street chieftains, all of whom argue that in order to truly end Too Big To Fail, the U.S. needs to shrink its top financial institutions so that none of them ever again threaten the financial system.

During an dinterview on PBS NewsHour, Larry Summers, director of the White House's National Economic Council, said that breaking up megabanks would hurt the economy.

"Most observers who study -- who study this believe that to try to break banks up into a lot of little pieces would hurt our ability to serve large companies and hurt the competitiveness of the United States," Summers said in response to a question about whether the U.S. should go further in trying to end Too Big To Fail by limiting the size of banks.

But when asked whether the U.S. should break up these giant institutions, Summers said no. He added that it's not significant.

"But that's not the important issue," Summers said during the interview, adding to his answer as to why the U.S. shouldn't break up megabanks. "[Observers] believe that it would actually make us less stable, because the individual banks would be less diversified and, therefore, at greater risk of failing, because they would haven't profits in one area to turn to when a different area got in trouble.

"And most observers believe that dealing with the simultaneous failure of many -- many small institutions would actually generate more need for bailouts and reliance on taxpayers than the current economic environment," he added. WHAT!!!!!!
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For the sake of our grandchildren Larry, you need to go far far away! Bill Clinton already threw you under the bus for making sure Wall Street's financial derivative products were not regulated. Remember the $1 billion hit Harvard incurred as a result of your approval of the institution's interest rate swaps contracts? Come on Larry, I know you remember!

Maybe Citgroup will take you under their wing as it was just two short years ago you were accepting their perks including a ride on the company jet. D. E. Shaw might have you back in an effort to squeeze a bit more from you as they did pay you $5 million in 2008. Grandpa truly could give a rip where you end up Larry, just go!