Welcome to Axis ProRata, a podcast that takes just 10 minutes to get you smarter on the collision of tech, business, and politics.

I'm Dempremak. On today's show, Republicans begin to feel a Brett bounce and the latest trouble for vaping companies.

But first, breaking up Wall Street. Yesterday was the 10-year anniversary of the creation of TARP, which was that giant pool of money the federal government used to bail out big banks at the height of the financial crisis.

And using that as a backdrop, Senator Bernie Sanders and California Congressman Brad Sherman introduced legislation that would effectively break up big banks.

No single financial institution should be so large that its failure would cause catastrophic

risk to millions of Americans or to our nation's economic well-being.

So the Senate bill, introduced by Sanders, would basically require the breakup of any U.S.

financial institution with exposure to more

than 3% of America's GDP, which works out to around $584 billion.

Among those that would be affected are Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Wells Fargo, and also some big

insurance companies like AIG and MetLife, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway would also be included.

Now, the House proposal

doesn't yet have a specific figure on it, but in a moment we'll speak directly with Representative

Sherman to see if 3% is also his number. Now, not surprisingly, the banks are not too excited about

this. They argue that changes made after the financial crisis have made them much safer and

that there's a fundamental role

for large financial institutions in the U.S. economy.

The bottom line is that none of this is going to become law anytime soon, at least so long

as Republicans control Congress in the White House.

But it is the sort of populist message that Democrats might use heading into the midterms,

particularly after Sanders and his fellow left-winger's

had some success getting Amazon to increase its minimum wage to $15 an hour.

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