John Garamendi: “There is something I learned long ago at the University of California when I was taking an economics class, and that was…”

“There is something I learned long ago at the University of California when I was taking an economics class, and that was the American private system of the economy was dependent upon competition, and that laws were put in place more than a century ago to eliminate concentration so that there are many, many players in the marketplace. It seems as though we have forgotten, or at least the Republican administration in 2000 to 2008, forgot that one of the key ingredients in a free market system is many, many competitors. But what happened during the decade of the nineties and 2000-2008 was a concentration in the banking industry so that now just a handful of companies, huge megabanks, control an enormous proportion of the American economy. And there's a proposal that has now been made by the Senator from, I believe, Delaware to limit all financial institutions to no more than 10 percent of the financial market, so that when they get to 10 percent, they can no longer grow. They would have to shed the business and, in that way, keep many, many players in the business. So there would be good competition and, simultaneously, create a situation in which no one bank would be too big to fail, thereby eliminating the need for a taxpayer bailout. I kind of like that idea.”