Size isn’t everything

Tim Geithner is a man with a plan. The US Treasury’s six-point agenda to tackle systemic risk looks broadly sensible. A key measure is to identify banks, insurers and other firms that are too big to fail and make them hold more capital. It won’t be easy to do – practically or politically – but it might reduce the too-big-to-fail problem by discouraging size. One key Geithner proposal centres on the idea that certain institutions – including, for example, insurers like American International Gro...