Mpls. Federal Reserve President wants to shrink mega-banks

Neel Kashkari, president of the Mpls. Fed
Neel Kashkari, selected as the new president of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank, an appointment to be announced Tuesday morning, November 10th. Kashkari was interim Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability from October 2008 to May 2009 and oversaw the TARP , the program the U.S. government implemented in response to the financial crisis. Kashkari also ran as a republican candidate for governor of California in 2014, losing to Democrat Jerry Brown.
Judy Griesedieck for MPR News

Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari said his peers have offered mixed reactions to his concerns that some banks remain too big to fail.

On Monday, Kashkari starts hosting a series of discussions about mega-banks. He says many were too big to fail before the financial crisis but have grown even larger since the Great Recession. Kaskakri has suggested regulators consider breaking up the largest banks and taking other steps that go further than regulators have planned.

"I've talked to a wide range of folks across the Federal Reserve Systems... Some people agree with what we're doing. Some people disagree. But that's the reason we have a distributed Federal Reserve System, so we can have a diversity of opinions and bring all the ideas forward."

Kashkari also said he wants to raise awareness of the issue but won't lobby Congress for action.

To hear Kashkari's full interview with MPR News host Tom Weber use the audio player above.

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