Comment by vonklaus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by vonklaus | Hacker News Reader

This is good. Articles like this however always seem to recall the subprime mortgage crisis, when "too big to fail" sheltered CEOs and banks from much fallout.

I would like to express to Sen Warren, and others, that a more fragmented & transparent financial system is important-- but much less than the broadband & tech sector.

Google has 1.6B[0] users of a total of 3.8[1] internet users.

too big to fail is 42% of the world using "core" services from one institution.

The data is hard to find and I am on mobile but the consolidation of global broadband & wireless provideres attempted or closed between 2015-2016 was nearly 1 Trillion. A rollup of unprecedented levels.

[0]http://m.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=+total+active+users+googl... * While this is Alexa's visits total, subsets of Google's 10-k (which doesnt break this out because they are facing heavy competition) adjust to uniques. If someone finds better data, I will adjust, but this seems to be the accepted active user base of google.

[1]http://m.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=total+internet+users&x=0&...

The difference in your comparison though is the internet still works if Google goes under. If a TBTF bank goes under [1] the financial system can halt/implode. Which is the main argument to break up the banks to a level where there isn't total-system fragility.

[1] due to their own reckless behavior / Capitalism on the upside, Socialism on the downside.

Well, I am going to call BS as if we had regulation regarding consolidation of banks, then we would have a larger eco-system in the financial areas: [0]

Here is my problem with banking, if naive, please inform me: Banking should be treated like any other base infrastructure. Financial infrastructure is critical. It is not ok for the foundation of modern commerce and civilization to be controlled by so few. We need to revamp our financial situation. period.

http://www.motherjones.com/files/images/big-bank-theory-char...

The economy still works if banks go down, it just gets messy. How many companies & people use gmail to communicate, google apps for biz, android, search.

40% of the internet hitting Bing would potentially overwhelm it. Keep in mind the subprime mortgage crisis was several banks. Add microsoft and google, the world would panic.

Facebook sees 1/3 traffic of google. Just like a run on banks, people desperate for info would prob level news sites maybe even FB.

Consider that outside of content/services we have providers. Verizon down. At&t down. Overwhelm the other towers or broadband failure.

Leaving aside how disgusting it is that these are actively encouraged monopolies and kill innovation & competition, it is dangerous.

1% of Germany lost internet TODAY. Deutsche telkom hit with ddos. 5 Banks in Russia 2 weeks ago. Oct 21 we all remember what happened to dyn.

This isn't even hypothetical, literally getting worse daily.

>The economy still works if banks go down, it just gets messy.

This is not accurate. The _ability_ of an ISP to route packets is not affected if another ISP stops routing packets (their ability to rout packets is independent). There will be a change in bandwidth usage but not in ability. If a TBTF bank goes down, it is entirely possible that other banks have financial contracts with it that are necessary to be fulfilled for the second bank to remain operational (their ability to route financial payments is dependent)

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