The New York Times pointed out, last Friday, that while the stopgap effort to stop last fall's financial crisis did work, efforts to make the obviously-needed fixes to avoid the next crisis have not gone anywhere yet. The problem with "too big to fail" banks is that they encourage disastrous risk-taking, because bankers and investors are allowed to reap windfall profits when their risky speculations go well, but the taxpayer steps in to bail them out when the bets go badly:
In the days that followed [last fall's financial crisis], nearly everyone seemed to agree that Wall Street was due for fundamental change. Its "heads I win, tails I'm bailed out" model could not continue. Its eight-figure paydays would end.
In fact, though
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