[clarents]

This seems to be a rather short-sighted view of the 2008 financial crisis. Even conceding that the bailout of the too-big-to-fail banks was a good thing and saved the economy, and that this was possible only because of the centralization that this article supports, it was this same centralization that did things such as repeal the Glass-Steagall Act that allowed for such zany behavior that led up to the crisis in the first place. So yeah, at one moment in time centralization was very beneficial. At many other moments in time before and after that, maybe it wasn't so great.

[viswanathk]

Repeal of Glass-Steagall act actually allowed the government to somewhat step away. Some of the well capitalised commercial banks were able to absorb the losses of the investment banks by buying them out when the price was low, and then making more money once the panic ended.