Five years ago this month, Wall Street’s banks were staggering and the global financial system strained under the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Since those days of fear and uncertainty, the financial system has stabilized and taxpayer anger over federal bailouts has subsided.

But most analysts agree, the financial risks associated with Wall Street have not been left behind us.

Congress passed, and President Obama praised, financial reform legislation known as Dodd-Frank. But just as is the case with health care, financial reform in America is unfinished business.

Time magazine’s recent cover story, titled “How Wall Street Won: Five years after the crash, it could happen all over again” makes that clear.

Some praise is deserved for those who steered the financial system through the darkest days of the crisis. It’s true that the financial system appears healthy, meaning big banks are making big profits again. But it’s also true that the same banks that were bailed out because they were deemed “too big to fail” are now even bigger.

Testifying before Congress about prosecuting financial crimes, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder suggested some Wall Street banks are now “too big to indict.” Holder said that the Justice Department has to consider the potential impact on the economy before it considers legal action against a major bank.

A third “too big” quality may have emerged related to the nation’s biggest banks — too big to manage. At least that’s one theory after JP Morgan Chase was hit with nearly $1 billion in fines for complex transactions at its London operation that resulted in a $6 billion loss. Some observers suggest that giant banks such as JP Morgan Chase are too big to manage given their massive size and global scope as well as the complexity of the high-risk financial products they create and sell.

Despite acknowledgement of the dangers of “too big to fail banks” and the passage of Dodd-Frank, Wall Street and the financial sector remains too big and too powerful. It’s not a stretch to suggest that Wall Street owns Washington, D.C. With its power, its armies of lobbyists, its ability to write big campaign checks, Wall Street does exert more power over Washington than probably any other industry.

The entire financial industry is too big and too powerful, and that’s the result of what’s called the financialization of the U.S. economy. There was a time when manufacturing was a dominant sector, when making things providing much of the country’s wealth. Today, as the manufacturing sector has shrunk, the financial sector has grown — and doing deals and making complex and risky bets is now a big element of the U.S. economy.

Time magazine’s article noted, “Washington did a great job saving the banking system in ’08 and ’09 with swift bailouts that averted even worse damage to the economy. But swayed too much by aggressive bank lobbying, it has done a terrible job of regulating the financial industry and reconnecting it to the real economy.”

Politicians in Washington like to suggest that financial reform in Dodd-Frank address the problems that led to the crisis and fueled public outrage over a system that rewards risky bets by banks with massive profits, but steps in with taxpayer bailouts when things go bad.

It truth, not enough has changed to prevent that from happening again. Dodd-Frank, as passed was not tough enough.And it’s being watered down by Wall Street lobbying efforts as details of the law are filled in.

Financial reform, like health care reform, is unfinished business. The financial industry is too powerful, and the major banks are too big to fail, too big to indict and too big to manage. That’s a recipe for another mess.

The system is less likely to implode, as it almost did in 2008 and 2009, but great risks remain. Politicians and regulators in Washington should admit this and get back to work on real, effective financial reforms.