Obama administration vows to put failing banks 'out of existence'.

Courtesy: Excerpt from International Business,Times of India.

WASHINGTON: US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner vowed on Thursday to put failing banks that take too much risk "out of existence" in order to avoid bailing out firms deemed "too big to fail" at taxpayers' expense.

"Our view is that we need to make sure that you're limiting how big they can get and how risky that they can get," Geithner told ABC News as the US Congress pursues negotiations on a sweeping financial reform bill. "But if, in the future, if they mess up and they take themselves to the edge of the cliff again, then we want to make sure we can put them out of existence, dismember them, break them up safely without the American taxpayer having to bail them out again."

President Barack Obama meanwhile said the United States was doomed to repeat its economic crisis if his financial reform bid failed, warning a free market was not a license for unfettered corporate greed. His remarks were part of advance excerpts of a speech he was due to give later in New York, the epicenter of US high finance.