‘Analyzing a government report is like eating and digesting a meal — better to take it slowly than gobble quickly and suffer the possible consequences.
Example: last Thursday’s report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on whether or not large financial institutions were still perceived as “too big to fail.”
The immediate takeaway by many in the media, government and investment community was that the need for a taxpayer subsidy like the bailouts of 2008 “may have declined or reversed in recent years” and, in the words of Mary J. Miller, the Treasury Department’s under secretary for domestic finance, “We believe these results reflect increased market recognition of what should now be evident – Dodd-Frank ended ‘too big to fail’ as a matter of law.”
But with just a little time to digest the GAO’s findings, much of the response has shifted to, “Not so fast.” ’
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