Honey, Let's Shrink the Banks

The call to break up the nation’s big banks is being answered, to some extent. What next?

Since the financial crisis, the battle cry from many reformers has been "Break up the big banks!" 

Senator Elizabeth Warren has been at the forefront of the fight to shrink the mega-banks, saying we shouldn't allow them to take on both high-risk trading and more "boring banking" operations, like wealth management and retirement planning. Warren argues there should be a wall of separation between the two and that banks should be smaller and more specialized

But the Federal Reserve has taken steps to prevent another bailout, such as requiring banks to increase their capital reserves and restricting banks from engaging in certain activities. And bankers say the new rules and regulations are working. Morgan Stanley's CEO James P. Gorman said this week that "banks are dramatically safer."

So which is it? Are banks boring again? Or is there more to do to limit the activities of the nation's biggest financial institutions?

Money Talking host Charlie Herman asks Sheelah Kolhatkar from Bloomberg Businessweek and Heidi Moore from Mashable how far reforms have gone and whether we're protecting ourselves from the next crisis.