Break up banks, or nationalize?

A new Bernie Sanders press release has corrected the lack of specificity from his New York Daily News endorsement interview about how to break up "too big to fail" banks.

But, in some cases, a better option exists: Nationalize them.

Krugman was for it in 2009. So was Harold Meyerson, while noting Sanders' push to cap credit card rates at the time as "something." So were other economists.

Beyond that, per this piece, the FDIC has long nationalized banks that fell more under the depository side of the old Glass-Steagall division.

That piece also gets at other issues.

Yes, Sanders has talked about postal savings banks, but he hasn't been as specific as he could on directly tying this to boosting the future fortunes of the United States Postal Service. And he hasn't really talked at all about getting other states to follow in the lead of the Peace Garden State with the Bank of North Dakota. Both of these are ideas I support.

The title of that piece is the tell: "The Revolution: Bernie and Beyond." There's specifics in that piece.

And, a quick teh Google has plenty about Sanders wanting to break up banks. It has nothing about him backing the idea of nationalizing them back in 2009. (Contra a commenter on the second to last link, nationalizing, while it may lead to bank break-ups, may not, and they're not necessarily the same thing. Nationalization, even if just for a "quick rinse," is a more radical option.)

And, that's an idea I supported at the time.

Again, Bernie Sanders is certainly a New Deal Democrat. Arguably a Great Society Democrat, and beyond, with "Medicare for all."

A socialist? No.