The recent consolidation in the financial sector has only formed even larger firms.... Thus the question becomes....what about competition....and in particular, what about competition not under US jurisdiction....? Another point being....Is the US Govt. in violation of its own anti trust regulations...etc....? ................................................................................ Banks and the securities business should be separated for obvious conflicts of interest...whereby "conflicts" are only currently separated by legal semantics.... .................................................................................. What should be unified is the securities exchange highway....whereby all public instruments should be priced and traded....All stocks, bonds, derivatives, and commodities.....In the currency of choice.....To be accessed by any qualifying bank.... The entrants legal entry and fact based information should be boilerplate.... All securities should be shielded from all taxes worldwide ....in order to provide for the most efficient capital possible.... ............................................................................... Regulation can be simplified in that all public vehicles go through price discovery on the exchange.....Unusual activity can handily be monitored in that all is electronic and comes from a single venue.... .................................................................................. Thus a tax free world wide exchange would merit a "monopolistic" type highway....but all the cars on the highway should be competing.... ................................................................................ Thus there are exceptions to what is workable as a monopoly....but a monopolistc car is not one of them....