Break up the Banks

Just finished reading an article in the Atlantic by Simon Johnson who is now a professor at MIT and was the chief economist at the International Monetary Fund during 2007 and 2008. His basic conclusion is that the US is in most, if not all, way acting like the troubled third world nations the IMF used to deal with and he recommends that we nationalize the banks for a while, break them down into smaller units and then reprivatize them. Another alternative would be to reprivatise them as they are but require them to be broken up by the new owners. He doesn't think that the economy can fully recover until we take that step.

He makes a lot of good points and based and here is a link to the article. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200905/imf-advice

I don't disagree with his point that the financial oligarchs have achieved way to much influence but diagree with some other points. I believe the market will be able to place a value on the "toxic assets" and that this can be done without privatization. believe it is already happening, although I do think it may be painful. Also, think a more bottoms up solution is more likely to work than any of these top down solutions.