Great coverage by Barry Ritholtz on what looks like a great speech (can't find it on the KC Fed's Web site) Kansas City Fed President Thomas Hoenig's speech. The basic idea: What did Fannie and Freddie have that City and BOA don't? Huge intermingling of public and private funds? Implicit taxpayer backing of debt? Enormous systemic risk amplified by leverage? Taxpayer subsidies of enormous executive compensation?

The answer is that you basically can't tell the difference. So the conservatives who are all for breaking up Fannie Mae ought to be for the same treatment for BOA and Citi. Hoenig to the big banks: “You’re public utilities for goodness sakes.”