In Wall Street speech, Sanders will pledge to break up big banks within first year in office

[Attorney in Texas]

Source: Washington Post

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders will pledge Tuesday that if elected president he would act within his first year to break up banks deemed “too big to fail.”

The promise is included in a speech that the Vermont senator is scheduled to deliver in Manhattan on Wall Street reform, one of the pillars of his upstart campaign for the Democratic nomination against Hillary Clinton.

In the address, Sanders plans to assert that “a handful of huge financial institutions simply have too much economic and political power over this country.”

“If a bank is too big to fail, it is too big to exist,” Sanders will say, according to excerpts released by his campaign. “When it comes to Wall Street reform, that must be our bottom line.”

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/01/04/in-wall-street-speech-sanders-will-pledge-to-break-up-big-banks-within-first-year-in-office/

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Here is an excerpt from a related news report from The US News & World Report, The Latest: Bernie Sanders to roll out plan to hold Wall Street banks accountable:

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is rolling out a plan to hold Wall Street banks accountable. In a reference to Oliver Stone's 1980s film, "Wall Street," Sanders plans to say Tuesday that "greed is not good."

The Sanders campaign says he will note that the federal government bailed out several financial institutions in 2008 but now three of the four largest financial institutions — JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo — are nearly 80 percent bigger than before the bailout.

Sanders is pledging to require the Treasury secretary to establish a "Too Big to Fail" list of commercial banks, shadow banks and insurance companies whose failure would pose a "catastrophic risk" to the U.S. economy.

He says within a year he will break up those financial institutions on the list and push for legislation to separate commercial and investment banking.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

1. K&R

Do it!

[truthisfreedom]

2. Feel the freakin' Bern!

Dude has momentum like a juggernaut.

[LovingA2andMI]

3. You Go Bernie!!!

#BreakUpTheBigBanks!!!

[RandySF]

4. And beyond that...?

[tex-wyo-dem]

8. Well, I guess we'll see...

I suspect a whole laundry list of regulations with teeth on banks and Wall Street, many of which have been discussed by the likes of Stiglitz, Reich and Elizabeth Warren to name a few.

[underthematrix]

14. This is why I prefer my President have a law degree. As President of China

or Iran, I suppose Bernie could breakup the too big to fail. But in America, we have a regulatory system that requires CONGRESS to pass legislation and then fund that legislation because laws do not get implemented and enforced without money.

[peacebird]

26. The laws are already on the books, we have not been enforcing the regs since Ronnies time

[CoffeeCat]

5. Go Bernie!

Real change. Real reform.

We're lucky that we have Bernie Sanders who is willing to take on these powerful corrupt Wall Street banks.

We should have had major reforms after these bastards tanked our economy and were bailed out by "We The People."

They used that bailout money to bribe politicians like Hillary Clinton into doing NOTHING so they could continue to behave recklessly and in ways that will probably require another taxpayer bailout--if we don't stop them.

Tired of the corruption. Sick of gutless politicians who accept Wall Street money and do nothing--unless of course it's an election year. Suddenly everyone's a reformer!

Let's get this man elected, because we know that he's honest, trustworthy and serious about breaking up these big banks and reinstating Glass Steagall!

[burrowowl]

6. Go Bernie!

May it happen when he is elected!

[Bernin]

7. I bet camp weathervane

wont match this.

[Eric J in MN]

9. He's addressing Hillary Clinton's criticism in the debates

...that he just wants to restore Glass-Steagall.

A "Too-Big-to-Fail list of commercial banks, shadow banks and insurance companies" is in addition to Glass-Steagall.

He first proposed that list years ago, but didn't talk about it in the debates.

[Proserpina]

10. I'm thinking he won't have to do much

These banks are going down by themselves....shedding stuff like dogs in spring, or collapsing of their crookedness. What they aren't getting is another bailout, no bail-in, and no pandering.

[trillion]

15. No, he knows what he's doing. Hes a congressman. He's spoken before congress telling them if the

banks are too big to fail they are to big to exist several times. Bernie has been a politician since the 60's. He knows how the system works. He will know how to get congress to break the banks ups and use the presidential position to help. This is not a man who stretches the truth, this is a guy whose feet actually are on the ground. Hopefully the banksters will think he's a fringe candidate because I see this being dangerous for him if they take him seriously. The rest of us need to realize that we finally got our candidate. Obama didn't deliver on his campaign promises. Bernie will. His record is consistent. He's still the only guy who stood against the iraq war in congress and has repeatedly spoken against the too big to fail corporations. He wanted to break the banks up during the bail out. Unlike many candidates, this isn't stuff he just says, this is stuff he's gone before congress and said repeatedly.

Hillary is the Wallstreet bankster's candidate. She is is forced to be Bernies arch enemy because of who backs her. The whole election has missed that because of the republican clown car diversion. Hillary vs. Sanders is a far bigger for wallstreet than anyone has ever talked about.

[pnwmom]

11. How would he do that without Congress? Why isn't he helping raise money

to put Dems into a position to help him keep his promises?

[Spitfire of ATJ]

16. Ya know, on paper those seats still aren't for sale.

[RandySF]

20. It still cost money to run for Congress.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

35. The media says so....

But then again, the media is the one selling air time for ads.

[trillion]

18. he'd use congress.

[pnwmom]

23. How would he "use" the Republicans in Congress?

How would he accomplish anything without more Dems?

[Uncle Joe]

25. Should Bernie be elected against the financial powers opposed to him, that kind of dynamic

would greatly reshape the Congress from what it is today.

He would have a crystal clear mandate and a future Congress would get the message that money alone won't be enough to save their seats.

[pnwmom]

27. Dream on. Getting some independents to vote for him, a former Independent,

isn't likely to translate into their voting for many Dems downticket.

Especially since he's not even trying to promote any other Dems' candidacies.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

12. Hey Media....

You're next.

[trillion]

13. Sanders has been saying if they're too big to fail they are too big to exist for years.

He will break them up.

[jtuck004]

17. Still a lie. Not too big to jail. There was no will by the parties they donated to investigate

and throw their sorry asses in jail. These bank$te/donors did the same things that S&L execs were jailed for in the 80s, the things that Dr William Black helped imprison them for, but the parties today preferred their comfort and paychecks to representing the people who elected them.

So everyone can clutch their pearls, break 'em up, create a big fight. Maybe they will get broken up, maybe not. Still doesn't appear that anyone will have the spine to prosecute the criminals.

So long as we keep protecting them, it won't matter if the criminals are in a 1 story building or a skyscraper. We are still diminished by our cowardly abandonment of millions of working Americans, the lives that will be lost and ruined because of it, the loss to our country of some of our most basic protections.

If there is still a country when the great grandkids read our story, they may well spit on our memory. They should.

[trillion]

19. You should google Bernie speaking before congress. This isn't a farce. He's been consistent.

I mean, maybe he was secretly running for president for the last couple of decades jsut to get all this stuff he's said on the record and it's his giant decades long scam to pull off his the 2016 election campaign, but I suspect he wouldn't have made that gun faux pas if that were the case.

[jtuck004]

21. Has nothing to do with him. It's a lie that they are too big to be investigated and prosecuted, a

useful falsehood. It has been and is still used as one of the excuses by those who didn't want to prosecute their friends, apparently figured pissing on and throwing away the lives of tens of millions of Americans was easier and more profitable. As it turns out, at least so far, they have been correct.

You can read the plan, detailed in Timothy "Killer" Geithner's book Stress Test, and laughed at by voters when Jon Stewert interviewed the slimy little creep: http://www.cc.com/shows/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart/interviews/z9b8f1/timothy-geithner-extended-interview

President Sanders can break up whatever, and people can attribute whatever future goodness they would like, but it's perpetuating a worn-out lie to suggest that it has anything to do with prosecuting them.

[safeinOhio]

22. Good start...

Oil, Pharma, Cable and Media.

[Uncle Joe]

24. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Attorney in Texas.

[Hoppy]

28. So now he's gonna waste tax payer money breaking up the big banks?

Alls he's gotta do is tell 'em to Cut it out" and they will divest themselves without gub'mint interference.

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

34. That's the dumbest thing I heard yet on this site! Get off my lawn!!!

[mmonk]

29. Long overdue. Go Bernie.

[CharlotteVale]

30. K&R

[Hotler]

31. I think he made a mistake announcing his plan.

He should have said it after he won the election. Now the PTB will be aiming for him more than ever and we will be lucky he makes to the Whitehouse. The PTB have too much money to loose to let him win. They will rig the vote or they will have the DNC make the call for HRC or God forbid they do to him like they did to Kennedy.

[winter is coming]

32. But... whether or not he's elected, people will be looking at candidates down-ballot

and wanting to know where they stand on this issue.

[Gregorian]

33. This just in: Hillary's going to break up the banks too.

Not.

You're going to have the same toxic situation as we've had since the Clintons disabled our regulations on banksters,