But that is not the right place to look nowadays, because regulators are positioning long-term debt to take the hit in a meltdown, while making banks’ extremely profitable – and far more volatile – short-term debt and trading operations more certain to be paid in full. As a result, traders choose too-big-to-fail banks, rather than mid-size institutions, as counter-parties for their short-term trades, causing the large banks’ trading books – and, hence, their profits – to surge.