What’s Geithner telling us that we don’t already know?

This final note today, to follow up on our story last week about systemic risk, the idea that the government’s going to be paying extra close attention from now on to companies that’re too big to fail. Treasury Secretary Geithner’s chairing the Financial Stability Oversight Council, as we mentioned, which met today to figure out how to identify those firms that are TBTF.

They’re going to look a company’s size, how dominant it is, its interconnectedness, its use of leverage or debt, how much cash it has on hand, and how much oversight there is of it by regulators.

Here’s my question: After two years of financial crisis, we needed a special government commission to tell us that stuff’s important?