Pioneer Bankster Sandy Weill says big banks should be broken up

(Bloomberg) Sanford “Sandy” Weill, who ushered in the era of supermarket banks with the creation of Citigroup Inc. (C) a decade before the financial crisis, said U.S. lenders should be broken up to protect taxpayers.

“What we should probably do is go and split up investment banking from banking,” Weill, 79, said today in an interview on CNBC. “Have banks do something that’s not going to risk the taxpayer dollars, that’s not going to be too big to fail.”

Weill helped engineer the 1998 merger of Travelers Group Inc. and Citicorp, a deal that required the U.S. government to overturn the Glass-Steagall law that forced deposit-taking companies to be separate from riskier investment banks. The company became the biggest lender in the world before almost failing and taking a $45 billion taxpayer bailout.

“We can have size and scale but it doesn’t have to be connected to a deposit-taking institution,” Weill said. “Have banks be deposit-takers, have banks make commercial loans and real estate loans.” ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-25/former-citigroup-chairman-weill-says-banks-should-be-broken-up.html