The Myth of Too-Big-To-Fail

[ixion]

I came across this article today posted by Donnachaidh, and saw a paragraph that I found disturbing:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1640738&mesg_id=1640998

http://counterpunch.org/lindorff08012011.html


Lonski, in an interview with ThisCantBeHappening!, said, "What scares me is that, because of the weakened condition of the federal government, there is less confidence in the philosophy of `too big to fail'-- the idea that the government will come in and back up any financial company that runs into trouble." He said the government is probably no longer in a position to make trillions of dollars available to prop up failing big banks as it did in 2008 and 2009, and that fearing this, financial institutions may pull back, drying up lending.

And what scares me is to hear the meme 'Too-Big-To-Fail' used in a progressive article in a positive context. The 'Too-Big-To-Fail' meme was unleashed by Wall St. in order to provide cover for the institutions that caused this mess in the first place. It was used to extort -- or better yet, rob -- trillions from the US Treasury.

The worst problem here, though, is that the meme is wholly and completely false. There simply is no such thing as a system that cannot fail. Any system is capable of failing, from an atom to the universe and all points in between. This is especially true, though, where a human construct is concerned. It breaks down like this:

All Systems can fail. All Institutions are systems. Ergo, all institutions are capable of failing.

At the end of the day, it's pretty straight forward.

This meme, a Monstrous Fallacy created by Wall St., needs to be rebuked with extreme prejudice, in my opinion.

Thanks for listening.

[RaleighNCDUer]

1. You do understand, don't you, that "too big to fail" does not mean they cannot fail?

It means they cannot be ALLOWED to fail - the consequences of failure would be more catastrophic than the costs of bailing them out.

Personally, I don't believe in the concept. If their failure is that catastrophic, they are too big to be allowed to persist. They need to be broken up into smaller, manageable entities. If they are "too big to fail" they have already failed.

[ixion]

2. I do understand that

the operative word being 'allowed' of course. I'm saying that a system can fail whether we want to 'allow' it or not.

I do agree with you that these companies are already failed companies. If they were forced to write down the value of their toxic assets, they'd be insolvent.

So they failed anyway, despite the pretense of not allowing it.