Bernie Sanders Quotes

When you have three out of the four largest banks in America today, bigger than they were - significantly bigger than when we bailed them out because they were too big to fail, I think if Teddy Roosevelt were alive today, a good Republican by the way, what he would say is: Break them up; they are too powerful economically; they are too powerful politically.

We don't have a good legal justification for breaking up the banking system. But if I could wave a magic wand, I'd break up the banking system.

My fantasy is to break up the big banks. I wish we would end 'too big to fail' in our banking system.

If they are too big to fail, make them smaller.

If I could wave a magic wand, I'd break up the banking system.

We need to change how we run banks. We need to change the culture. If we get it right, we can have a huge impact.

Certainly, some of the anti-bank rhetoric has shifted a little bit, but on either side of the aisle, there seems to be different tacts. On one side of the aisle, you see a proposed scaling back of Dodd-Frank. On the other, a proposed reinstatement of Glass-Steagall.

We need to repeal Dodd-Frank act. It is eviscerating small businesses and small banks.

By definition, design, and practice, capitalism is a system that concentrates economic power in the hands of the few to the exclusion of the many.

I agree with people who say we want more income equality; we want more consumer protection; and we want sounder banks. I agree with all that.

I think that the Occupy movement is, in one sense, the public saying that they should be the ones to decide who's too big to fail.

The economy may be complex, but Americans understand that the Wall Street banks control an outsized portion of the economy and that they have an outsized interest in their own profits.

Swipe fees have increased steadily since the introduction of debit cards 20 years ago, when there were no swipe fees at all. Merchants can't negotiate or control them. They've tried, but they have no leverage against the big banks and issuers. So they get ignored.

Banks are very big lobbyists. There is a long history in this country of prohibiting companies not in banking to get into the banking business.

Capital is good; the capitalist is a helper if he is not also a monopolist. We can safely let any one get as rich as he can if he will not despoil others in doing so.

So, we have in America today, my friends, a condition by which about 10 men dominate the means of activity in at least 85 percent of the activities that you own. They either own directly everything or they have got some kind of mortgage on it, with a very small percentage to be excepted. They own the banks, they own the steel mills, they own the railroads, they own the bonds, they own the mortgages, they own the stores, and they have chained the country from one end to the other

Theodore Roosevelt understood that unregulated monopoly could pose an even greater threat than unrestrained government.

What we're seeing now is that greed is still alive and kicking, and banks are bigger than ever.

Bankers also play politics.

To enable large U.S. banks to support their clients better, the Volcker rule should be clarified.

The swipe fee reform law that Congress enacted in 2010 was a huge step forward in bringing transparency, competition, and choice to a debit card system that had been rigged by Visa, MasterCard, and the banks.

We don't have a good legal justification for breaking up the banking system.

I don't think the government needs to be frightened of the banks in the slightest.

In the 1990s, the Democratic Party began to cozy up to their long-time enemies: Wall Street Bankers. They took their money and relaxed their regulations until the Great Recession forced the Democrats via Dodd-Frank to re-regulate the banks.

I think that if you're going after large banks and large financial companies to try to make sure people are being treated fairly, you're going to make some enemies, and you're going to make people uncomfortable.