“Too big to fail” was a mistake because it bailed out incompetent firms during the global financial crisis. Breaking up big firms today would also be a mistake and would lead to higher prices, less innovation, and more cronyism.
During the fallout of the 2007-08 global financial crisis came the notion that some firms are so large and important – regardless of their sometimes-reckless corporate decisions and faulty risk calculations – that they needed to be saved and kept intact by the federal government.