SOME DODD-FRANK LIES BY POLITICIANS

An article titled "Presidential Candidates Don't Understand The Banking System" by Richard X. Bove* states (quotes in italics):

(1) It is often stated (by various candidates) that, since the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act, the biggest banks have gotten bigger.That's simply not true: In fact, the four biggest banks in the country have declined from having nearly 58 percent of the industry's assets in 2010, (when Dodd-Frank was passed) to nearly 52 percent in 2015 and they are likely to shrink even more rapidly in the next few years due to newly published regulations.

(2) It is being argued that small banks are failing at a faster rate since Dodd-Frank was passed. Also not true. From 1986, when the number of banks peaked in modern times, to just before the financial crisis, we were losing more than one bank a day to mergers and failures. We are still losing banks but at a pace well below the past.

(3) There is a fear that banks are still taking on too much risk, despite the hundreds of new regulations being put in place. This is the most outrageous untruth of all. Banks now have more cash as a percent of assets than any time in the past 25 to 30 years.

(4) Perhaps the biggest misunderstanding is the position of capital in the banking industry. Both sides of the political aisle and the regulators keep demanding more and more capital as protection for the banking system. Yet in the past five years, equity in the commercial-banking system has been consistently greater as a percent of assets than any time since 1938.

(5) Moreover, it was recently demonstrated that a number of politicians, and the media, did not realize that the Federal Reserve is no longer allowed to bail out banks. Further, it is not understood that the Fed now has a new system in place built around something called Living Wills. Under this system, every large bank in the country has provided a template to the regulators as to how to dismantle itself if it were to become insolvent.

Bove does say, " In that 77-year period [since 1938], the United States has not had one Depression or collapse of its banking system." I don't understand this.  What was it that we rescued ourselves from in 2008-2009 (e.g. TARP, Troubled Asset Relief Program)?

* http://www.cnbc.com/2015/11/12/presidential-candidates-dont-understand-the-banking-system-bove-commentary.html