Biggest banks must be broken up: Fed's Hoenig (by Greg Robb)

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - The systemic risks to the U.S. economy from the biggest U.S. banks is even worse than before the financial crisis, and therefore the biggest banks must be broken up,said Thomas Hoenig, the president of the Kansas City Fed on Wednesday. Hoenig said regulators should expand the Volcker Rule and carve out business lines that are not essential to the basic business of commercial banking so they are not covered by the public safety-net of deposit insurance. He argued that the separate parts of most too-big-to-fail firms might add up to a value much larger than each firm in its entirety.