Breaking up firms by business line Proposals to reimpose a Glass-Steagall prohibition on affiliations between commercial and investment banks have been met with the rejoinder that the origins of the financial crisis do not trace back very clearly to these affiliations. Many firms at the center of the crisis would have been essentially unchanged had Glass-Steagall been in effect.
At the same time, a global monopoly might lead to a single point of failure and other economic costs associated with monopolies (such as the abuse of market power and a lack of innovation). However, it is not obvious that the alternative to a monopoly – that is, networks of interoperable systems – is superior.