PhillyDeals: He'll propose a law against being too big

Think there ought to be a law against companies' getting so big and complicated that taxpayers end up bailing them out?

Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski (D., Pa.), the No. 2-ranking power on the House Financial Services Committee, tells me he's going to write one.

He's not just against too big. That's already illegal, but it didn't stop Citi, AIG, or GM from taking on more risk than they could manage, or we could afford.

Rather, Kanjorski worries "about the interconnectedness of these companies."

Like who? Chrysler had less than one-tenth of the U.S. auto market, "but they argued their failure would constitute 'systemic risk,' " because "the suppliers would fail, the dealers would fail," and their banks would fail, if taxpayers didn't step in.

But would Kanjorski also break up Ford, JPMorgan Chase & Co., or other comparatively solvent companies that compete with foreign-government-backed rivals?

Kanjorski hooted: "One big corporation could run everything in the world," if we let it.

But this isn't about mere efficiency, he added. It's about opportunity: Europe is breaking up its troubled banks, forcing Royal Bank of Scotland (which owns Citizens Bank) and ING Group (which owns Wilmington-based ING Direct), among others, to sell some assets and shrink.

Kanjorski says it's our last chance to join our old allies in break-'em-up mode: "The European Union and the United States still control 80 percent of the securities in the world. China and Japan would have to accept our [corporate limits] for the next 100 years. If we don't, in 10 years China will be big enough to start imposing its standard, and we won't be able to do anything about it.

"We want to get our arms around gigantic mega-corporations that have more power than some nations. If we don't do it now, you'll have to wait until there's a United Nations response. How long will that be?"

Does that mean Kanjorski's going to push his new friend, JPMorgan chairman Jamie Dimon, a Democratic donor who has met lately with a bipartisan group of Kanjorski's allies in closed-door sessions, to un-merge his profitable worldwide financial conglomerate?

"It certainly is subject to being evaluated," Kanjorski told me.

"We're not out to kill capitalism. We're not out to kill anybody. We're trying to put a speed limit. We don't want an autobahn."

But there are limits to limits, added the veteran dealmaker: "We don't want to make it like a redneck town either," with government punishing every visitor.

"And we definitely don't want to clear out our field" of all big U.S. companies, only to find we're facing "open competition" by Chinese corporate giants.

So our government will choose which U.S. giants live?

Gerard M. Banmiller

, president and chief executive at

1st Colonial National Bank

, of Collingswood, says he was surprised to meet some American Marxists last month who weren't college professors.

"Last week some of them were out in force in Chicago, demonstrating at the American Bankers Association annual meeting," with signs naming "left-wing" labor and community groups.

"Their common denominators were naïveté and anarchy," Banmiller said.

Naive? "They don't want to get it," Banmiller says.

"The ABA is an organization of community banks formed so we have a larger voice in D.C. We're not on Washington's speed-dial like AIG, Chase, Fannie Mae, Bank of America, Citi, and Goldman Sachs," the giants who "caused the meltdown."

Instead, he explained, "we are the people that lend your employers money to grow the businesses that keep you employed. We are the people who lend your neighbors money to buy or improve their homes, once they've proven they can pay us back. There were no subprime mortgages here."

"The demonstrators in Chicago, beating drums and carrying signs, calling us 'bloodsuckers' and 'fascists,' apparently have been listening to Obama and his strident rhetoric, lumping all banks together to serve his political purpose . . .

"I do admit to a transitory period of anger in Chicago, but it has now subsided to resentment. I will, like many of my fellow bankers, remember that week."