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As the Cyprus crisis was unfolding last week we also got to see the report of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations on JP Morgan’s losses at its “London Whale” trading division. The report chronicles a series of bad bets on derivatives that were compounded by traders doubling down their stakes. They concealed the size of their losses both to bank officers and regulators. The end result was a $6 billion loss.

If the big banks are too big to regulate and, according to Attorney General Holder, too big to prosecute, then the only sensible course is to break them up. There have been some promising developments in this area. At the top of the list is Elizabeth Warren’s election to the Senate. Senator Warren has already made it clear that she will use her seat on the Banking Committee to try to hold the banks and bank regulators accountable. The other important development is that Warren seems to have an ally in Louisiana Senator David Vitter.

If there is ever going to be enough political force to break up the big banks it will have to come from this sort of left-right coalition that moves in toward the center.