(Newser)
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The Left is suddenly playing offense in the push for financial reform legislation, with liberal senators preparing a barrage of amendments to beef up the bill. One would break up the nation's six largest banks—Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley—whose combined assets make up 60% of the gross domestic product, according to the AP. “They're just too big,” says co-sponsor Ted Kaufman. “They're too big to manage, too big to regulate.”
Other proposals include preventing banks from playing the market, or to simply re-instate Depression-era regulations separating federally-insured banks from investment houses. Democrats admit to Politico that some of these are “messaging amendments,” designed to make political points but unlikely to pass, and some have drawn opposition from the White House. But some seem likely to stick. “It’s probably going to be a stronger bill than any of us imagined when we got into this,” says the co-founder one liberal group.
