What should happen

Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner is to go before Congress today, to say what the Administration would like to have happen for and to our financial system, so we can avoid the kinds of problems we have now, in the future.

Following is a short list of what he should be asking and pressing for, at minimum:

1) The outlawing of hedge funds since they just put bets upon bets and run up stock markets artificially;

2) The outlawing of short selling, for the same reasons as above;

3) The making illegal of "credit swaps" since they're a ridiculous lie of a term--a sham, really--meant to be a replacement for actual insurance and all their necessary financial supports;

4) The inability for corporations to buy too many competitors, so they don't become a threat to our country and financial system, the way AIG did and get to be "too big to fail". We knew this from the Great Depression but we let it happen anyway. Hey, what was Congress supposed to do, walk away from lobbyist's money and do the right thing for the country?

These are four easy, intelligent, simple things that should absolutely happen to both help clean up our current mess and to avoid similar problems to our current ones, now.

Sadly, again, ridiculously and even irresponsibly, it won't happen.

Congress hasn't the backbone to do any of this and lobbyists and corporations are too far into our representative's collective financial pockets to do these, right things. There will be huffing and puffing but in the end, what really needs to happen, won't.

Link to story on today's testimony:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090326/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/financial_regulation