Questions - Banks Too Big To Fail - March 19-20, 2013

National Survey of 1,000 Adults
Conducted March 19-20, 2013
By Rasmussen Reports

1* Is it better for the U.S. financial system to have more competition and less regulation or more regulation and less competition?

2* There are more than 5,000 banks in the United States. However, just 12 megabanks control about 69% of the banking industry. Would you favor or oppose a plan to break up the megabanks?

3* The federal government provides these dozen megabanks with nearly $100 billion in subsidies every year. Should the federal government continue to provide these subsidies to the largest banks?

4* The federal government provides insurance to protect deposits made in regulated banks. That way, if a bank fails, people who have a checking or savings account will not lose their money. Should the federal government provide deposit insurance to protect those who place money in a bank?

5* There are limits on deposit insurance, meaning wealthier Americans are not fully protected. If someone has a lot of money in a bank that fails, they could theoretically lose some of their money. Is it fair to fully protect the deposits for lower-income and middle class Americans while only partially protecting the wealthy?

6* To fully protect the deposits of lower and middle-income Americans, the insurance should cover the amount of money they might have in the bank at any one time. Should the deposit insurance limit be set at $10,000, $25,000, $50,000, $100,000, $250,000, $500,000, or more?

7* If wealthy Americans aren’t fully protected, will they be careful to only place their money in the most financially secure banks?

8* To prevent any one bank from posing too great a risk to taxpayers, should there be a limit to how many insured deposits any one bank can accept?

9* Some people say that the largest banks and finance companies are “too big to fail.” Suppose some of the largest banks in the country reach a point where they can no longer meet their obligations. Should the government let the banks go out of business or find a way to keep them in business?

NOTE: Margin of Sampling Error, +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence