Too Big to Fail, But Not Too Big to Bail Out Other Banks

To call JPMorgan Chase & Co. merely the biggest bank in the US doesn’t do justice to a scale that’s been boggling minds for a century.

Before it bought First Republic Bank on May 1, JPMorgan had a balance sheet that totaled $3.7 trillion, and it had more than 10% of US deposits. Before the bank purchased most of Washington Mutual, whose 2008 collapse is still US history’s largest, it took over Bear Stearns, Bank One and Chase Manhattan, which had merged with Chemical, which had merged with Manufacturers Hanover.