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Podcast: What’s Up With the Banks?

(Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images)

Last week, ProPublica's editor-in-chief Steve Engelberg sat down with senior reporter and "The Trade" columnist Jesse Eisinger to talk about what's wrong with banks being so big.

The pair discussed the impact of Dodd-Frank, why shareholders seem to be happy with the current system, whether the recovery is working for all of us, what really happened with the London Whale and why there isn't more competition in the banking industry?

In response to that last question, Eisinger said, "I think it's an oligopoly that is protected by our political class and protected by the regulatory structure. I think that the Federal Reserve – if you dosed them with truth serum – would say we want in this country six large banks that we can monitor much more easily than the banking system that we have today. And so there's a bias toward large banks. They believe that large banks are diversified entities, so that the diversification helps protect them. I think the diversification makes them unmanageable. And they're extraordinarily powerful entities."

Mike Webb

Mike Webb was the vice president/communications of ProPublica. He is a veteran communications specialist with experience in public relations, marketing, sales and campaign work at media companies, think tanks, political organizations and in the entertainment business.

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