That last one's bugged me for a while. If small, local banks weren't permitted to merge until such time as they were "too big to fail", there would likely be n

That last one's bugged me for a while. If small, local banks weren't permitted to merge until such time as they were "too big to fail", there would likely be no need to bail them out today. There are economies of scale in banking, but they're not on the same level as manufacturing industries and that sort of thing.