J.P. Morgan Chase is the second-largest U.S. bank, but its CEO spoke out on Nov. 13 to condemn the policy of bailing out banks which are "too big to fail."

Jamie Dimon wrote in the Washington Post that even his bank should accept the risk of failure.

"[I]f some unforeseen circumstance should put this firm at risk of collapse, I believe we should be allowed to fail," Dimon said. He argued that rather than limiting the size of banks and financial firms, failure should be a regulatory option.

According to Dimon, regulators should be given "authority to facilitate failures," wipe out shareholders and unsecured creditors, fire management and liquidate assets.

Dimon said this is better than the alternative: "This is challenging but worth doing. The alternatives, neither of which is acceptable, are to perpetuate the politically, economically and ethically bankrupt "too big to fail" idea, or to try to impose artificial limits on the size of U.S. financial institutions."

Although the collapse of Bear Stearns happened back in March, the debate still rages as to what led to the failure of the 85-year old investment bank that had survived years of previous turmoil, including the Great Depression.

After JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon appeared on PBS's "The Charlie Rose Show" July 7 and commented on an August 2008 Vanity Fair article alleging that CNBC reporting could have been part of Bear Stearns' downfall, the cable channel's on-air editor Charlie Gasparino criticized what was claimed in the article and Dimon's reaction on CNBC's July 8 "Power Lunch."

"Well, you know, he [Dimon] said one thing that I'm just - listen, I didn't watch it," CNBC's Charlie Gasparino said, "I'm just going by what appears to be a transcript here: ‘Where there's smoke, there's fire.' Oh really? Sometimes where there's smoke, there's no fire, Jamie. I've got news for you."