Dear Senator,
To which of the two new classes do I belong: expendable or essential, aka "too big to fail"? Over the past year I have learned this new distinction in American democracy, which up until this point considered "all men are created equal" both a beginning and a goal, starting to discern those who are essential to the American economy and those who are not. The latter group includes the largest banks in the country: Citigroup, Bank of America, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, etc.
But a specific list of the infallible is not available. Nor is a clear definition of "too big to fail" so that we may make the calculations ourselves. Is 5% of market share "too big to fail" or is there a specific dollar amount?
These questions are of the highest importance.60 Minutes
Scott Pelley: "Are you committing in this interview, that you are not going to let any of these banks fail? That no matter what their balance sheet actually looks like, they are not gonna fail?"
Ben Bernanke: "They are not gonna fail."
The Chairman of the Federal Reserve just committed an infinite amount of government resources to the success of privately owned banks. Thus, we have started to discern a new relation between these classes.
...the government has alreadycommitted $9 trillion dollars of bailout funds to the financial system and already disbursed $2 trillion of that amount.
These infallible bank have had multibillion dollar losses over the last year and may continue to have that level of losses. It stands to reason that the resources of the expendable will be taxed for the benefit of the essential for as long as they maintain that status.
I don't remember having the chance to vote on this. If fact, I don't remember any debate on this matter at all, only statements of it's necessity. Thus, this is a radical departure from American precedent and is a matter of the highest importance to the future of our country.
Your expediency in answering these questions would be greatly appreciated.
Sincerely,
Bryce
Seattle Washington