Simon Johnson's appearance Friday evening on Bill Moyers Journal is generating considerable buzz in the econoblogosphere for pointing out that Too Big to Fail is simply too big. Johnson is a former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund, and continues in the interview by saying that the U.S. economy, with it's large, entrenched financial elites, reminds him more of the problems of oligarchy associated with developing economies that are frequent clients of the IMF.

I'm posting this here because one way to view the problems that our government (both under the prior admininstration, and, apparently, under the current one) is having with nationalizing the big, failed banks is precisely the inefficiency that David and Michele identify in their book: the entrenched elites, failures though they are in their own businesses, still have enough political clout and resources to lobby against direct federal take-overs of their failed institutions.

Johnson goes on to recommend increased antitrust scrutiny along the lines of Teddy Roosevelt's trust busting campaigns against the last century's robber barons. The interview is well worth watching.