Big Banks Need to Be Resilient, Not Eliminated: Editorial

The overseers of the US financial system have taken to worrying about the size of banks. Some want to prevent mid-sized ones from getting larger through mergers. Others are musing about breaking up the biggest.

They’re right to be concerned, but their focus is misplaced. Instead of worrying about size, they should insist on strength.

So-called systemically important banks do present challenges. Although their scale has some advantages, they’re so complex and intertwined with the broader economy — with hundreds or even thousands of subsidiaries spread across the globe — that their failure is hard to contemplate. In the ...