Canadian businessman Kevin O’Leary told Fox News host Tucker Carlson Thursday that regional banks are unnecessary in the current economy.
“What do we need tiny regional banks for in the first place?” O’Leary, who stars on ABC’s “Shark Tank,” asked Carlson, a co-founder of the Daily Caller and Daily Caller News Foundation. “What we’re learning is where are you going to find systemic risk in a tiny bank that doesn’t have scale? So the managers there have to swing for the fences. They’re compensated on equity in the bank’s stock.” (RELATED: Tucker Carlson Wonders What The Federal Gov’t Will Get In Return For ‘Backstopping’ Deposits At Failed Banks)
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“You’re going to get more and more of this because these banks are under tremendous pressure to compete against what is going on with behemoths,” O’Leary said after comparing the failed banks to a hedge fund and a Saturday night cartoon.
“You’re making a strong case on the basis of math, which I respect. It’s inefficient to have the little banks when you have the big banks,” Carlson told O’Leary. “But doesn’t that give politicians disproportionate control over our economy if everyone is banking with six banks, doesn’t that make Washington much stronger?”
O’Leary noted that people were already moving to the larger banks due to the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, and added that First Republic Bank, which saw its stock price plummet this week, was a “zombie bank.”
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