7 Institutions That Have Grown So Monstrously Big They Threaten to Destroy America

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/economy/banks-america



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1. Bigger Corporations

Americans have known about the danger of overly large corporations since the founding of the Republic. “I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations,” said Thomas Jefferson, “which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”

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2. Bigger Banks

The statistics on too-big-to-fail banks and financial institutions are staggering: The largest 0.2 percent of US banks—12 of them, altogether—control 69 percent of the industry’s total assets, while 98.6 percent of all banks held only 12 percent of assets.

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3. Bigger Investors

Holding companies, hedge funds, and other institutions own more and more of the private-sector economy. That includes groups like Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital, which invests in everything from pharmacies to retail chains to homes for troubled teens.

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4. Bigger Charities

It should be no surprise that all of this, along with government policies toward taxation and other matters, is creating runaway levels of individual wealth. And as a few individuals amass extraordinary wealth, even charitable giving becomes a bigger problem.

[safeinOhio]

1. Nail, meet hammer.

+1

[raouldukelives]

2. Great read. Support Wall St or support America. Can't do both. nt

[taught_me_patience]

3. #1. The supreme court

ruling over America like kings.