Zócalo Public Square

Since the devastating economic crisis of 2008, new regulations have aimed to reign in the big banks that helped bring down the world economy. But six “megabanks” still rule the financial markets. They are bigger, more profitable, and more resistant to regulation than ever before. They control assets amounting to 60 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. And their rise from the ashes of the Great Recession is only the latest Wall Street triumph in a long history of showdowns between American government and finance, dating back to Thomas Jefferson. How did this come to be? Simon Johnson, co-author of 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown, visited Zócalo to explain why big banks and the ideology of unfettered finance still endangers us today, and what we can do to avoid another meltdown.