FIVE BIGGEST BANKS CONTROL ALMOST HALF OF ASSETS

“The odds are that, a year from now, Bernie Sanders won’t be in the White House pushing the Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Exist Act. Still, the 2016 Presidential campaign has demonstrated that many Americans don’t feel that the system—the dominant institutions in government and in business—is working for them. Then, there’s the fact that economic power, especially in finance, has become much more concentrated in the past twenty-five years: during that time, the five biggest banks have gone from controlling about a tenth of assets to close to half. That makes for an obvious target for people’s stalled-out feelings.”

Nicholas Lemann, “Notorious Big, Why the Spectre of Size Has Always Haunted American Politics,” in the New Yorker, March 28, 2016, pp: 72-75.