Too Big to Fail, or Too Trifling for Oversight?

It is not very often that business people head to Washington to explain how unimportant they are. Enlarge This Image Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Representative Barney Frank says mutual fund and life insurance companies were not the causes of the financial meltdown. His Massachusetts base is home to many such companies. Add to Portfolio Bank of America Corporation Citigroup Inc General Electric Company SLM Corp Zurich Financial Services AG Boeing Company International Business Machines Corporation Ford Motor Company Goldman Sachs Group Inc Wells Fargo & Co Allstate Corp American International Group Inc Go to your Portfolio » But over the last several months, executives from more than two dozen financial companies and their trade groups have paraded into the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and other government agencies to try to persuade top regulators that they are not large or risky enough to threaten the financial system if they should ever collapse.