Banking is based on two fundamentally irreconcilable functions: safekeeping of deposits and relending of deposits. Safekeeping is meant to be a risk-free function, but using deposits to fund loans inevitably poses risk to deposits, thereby undermining the safekeeping function. The expensive,...

This is a short analysis of the Taxpayer Protection and Responsible Resolution Act (TPRRA) of 2018, a proposal to amend the Bankruptcy Code add a new Chapter 14 authorizing a single-point-of-entry style resolution of failed bank holding companies. The analysis shows that TPRRA would dangerously...

Systemic risk - the possibility that an individual firm's failure will result in broad damages to the economy as a whole - is the epitome of financial crisis. Bailouts of troubled firms have long been the standard response to systemic risk. Yet, bailouts suffer from problems of political...