Dylan Ratigan: Four Simple Ways to Fix the Financial System

Via Tyler Durden, Dylan Ratigan offers four shockingly simple principles to repair the broken financial system.

This must have been one of those "so simple it would never occur to any politician" epiphanies. Four great points by Dylan Ratigan that should immediately be taken up by pro-reform politicians. If Barney Frank deems these are unenforceable or not worthy of his attention, replace Barney Frank immediately.

[His] proposals on how to fix the broken financial system:

• Inject transparency, primarily to bring almost $500 trillion in swaps to the forefront.
• Capital to back Wall Street's gambling. It is a guarantee that very few firms will have Goldman's trading pattern each and every quarter.
• Enact a tax-code to discourage short-term profits. "Fortunes should not be made in minutes but over years through the creation of value to society."
• Break up the Too Big To Fail banking institutions. Start with Goldman Sachs. Right Now. Christine Varney, we are still looking at you.

For those who still believe Goldman is operating entirely legitimately, its recent track record ought to disabuse you of that quaint notion: during the third quarter, the firm made money on 63 trading days and lost money on exactly one. Its trading record for the second quarter was just as good.

Smells like Bernie Madoff was here.