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Banks are declared “too big to fail”. Banks! How can a bank be so important, and ostensibly private, that it can’t fail and let its shareholders take their lick

Banks are declared “too big to fail”. Banks! How can a bank be so important, and ostensibly private, that it can’t fail and let its shareholders take their licks? There is no world - none - literally no possible universe - that Boeing cannot sell to the government, or that it fails, or that its planes get grounded indefinitely, or anything even remotely close to this outcome. There are 2 plane makers of appreciable size on earth, Boeing and Airbus. They are essentially government owned enterprises. Boeing has made a strategic decision and nothing of consequence whatsoever will come of this. Maybe a few people go to jail for a few months. That’s literally it

mulmen 2y ago
Banks are not declared too big to fail. They are sometimes described that way. But banks fail all the time. It’s why the FDIC exists. Boeing and the US government have a long and intimate relationship but it is mutual. Boeing was fully vertically integrated until it was favorable to encourage competition in the aviation industry and the US government broke the company up. Boeing is not untouchable.
- lordnacho 2y ago
  Think he means certain banks. Think JP Morgan, Citi, that kind of bank, rather than banks as a whole.
  - chaostheory 2y ago
    You’re describing a GSIB. There are only 4-6 banks in the US that’s considered a GSIB
    - dabraham1248 2y ago
      8 (1). And I think that, in this context, those 8 plus the 22 US D-SIBs (2) means that there's 30. FWIW, I _think_ I'm not just pedantically correcting a particular number. I think I'm asserting that keeping track of n organizations is roughly O(n^2), so it's not 4 times as much work to keep track of them all, but more like 56 times as much work. I think that's a real difference that requires a different approach. I get that _you're_ not saying anything re: approach, just terminology. But I think the number matters to this subthread. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_systemically_important_banks#List_of_Global_Systemically_Important_Banks_(G-SIBs) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_systemically_important... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_systemically_important_banks#List_of_Domestic_Systemically_Important_Banks_(D-SIBs) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_systemically_important...
robertlagrant 2y ago
> How can a bank be so important, and ostensibly private, that it can’t fail and let its shareholders take their licks? They probably should fail, except it might be more than shareholders that get ruined by that happening.
jajko 2y ago
You know whose money those failing banks have/had? Its hardly its own, nor investor's as much as you would like, its mostly regular joes. The same regular joes that screams 'eat the rich' and 'let them fail'. I wonder what would the same joe say if government listened and next day same joe would be without his pension or savings. And as written by others banks do fail, and literally end their existence or are sold for peanuts to competition (Credit Suisse just recently). Using few cases from 2008 and making claims like whole universe always runs like that ain't very close to reality and doesn't help the discussion.
burkaman 2y ago
When a company fails, its employees and factories don't all explode or something. It's just a financial issue, everything still exists. So one possible universe is that Boeing the corporation fails, and the government rescues it and makes it an actual government owned enterprise. Investors and executives lose some money but we still get our planes. Just pass a law and nationalize and/or break it up. Here's someone more knowledgeable than me discussing this idea: https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/its-time-to-nationalize-and-then https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/its-time-to-nationalize-a....

mulmen 2y ago

Banks are not declared too big to fail. They are sometimes described that way. But banks fail all the time. It’s why the FDIC exists. Boeing and the US government have a long and intimate relationship but it is mutual. Boeing was fully vertically integrated until it was favorable to encourage competition in the aviation industry and the US government broke the company up. Boeing is not untouchable.

lordnacho 2y ago
Think he means certain banks. Think JP Morgan, Citi, that kind of bank, rather than banks as a whole.
- chaostheory 2y ago
  You’re describing a GSIB. There are only 4-6 banks in the US that’s considered a GSIB
  - dabraham1248 2y ago
    8 (1). And I think that, in this context, those 8 plus the 22 US D-SIBs (2) means that there's 30. FWIW, I _think_ I'm not just pedantically correcting a particular number. I think I'm asserting that keeping track of n organizations is roughly O(n^2), so it's not 4 times as much work to keep track of them all, but more like 56 times as much work. I think that's a real difference that requires a different approach. I get that _you're_ not saying anything re: approach, just terminology. But I think the number matters to this subthread. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_systemically_important_banks#List_of_Global_Systemically_Important_Banks_(G-SIBs) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_systemically_important... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_systemically_important_banks#List_of_Domestic_Systemically_Important_Banks_(D-SIBs) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_systemically_important...

robertlagrant 2y ago

> How can a bank be so important, and ostensibly private, that it can’t fail and let its shareholders take their licks? They probably should fail, except it might be more than shareholders that get ruined by that happening.

jajko 2y ago

You know whose money those failing banks have/had? Its hardly its own, nor investor's as much as you would like, its mostly regular joes. The same regular joes that screams 'eat the rich' and 'let them fail'. I wonder what would the same joe say if government listened and next day same joe would be without his pension or savings. And as written by others banks do fail, and literally end their existence or are sold for peanuts to competition (Credit Suisse just recently). Using few cases from 2008 and making claims like whole universe always runs like that ain't very close to reality and doesn't help the discussion.

burkaman 2y ago

When a company fails, its employees and factories don't all explode or something. It's just a financial issue, everything still exists. So one possible universe is that Boeing the corporation fails, and the government rescues it and makes it an actual government owned enterprise. Investors and executives lose some money but we still get our planes. Just pass a law and nationalize and/or break it up. Here's someone more knowledgeable than me discussing this idea: https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/its-time-to-nationalize-and-then https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/its-time-to-nationalize-a....