One of the problems that IMO people do not address is there were NO IMPLICIT GUARANTEES IN PLACE for a lot of the firms that got them...
Now think about that... the people at Goldman, AIG, GM, Chrysler and a good number of other firms did not have any idea that they would get 'bailed out'... and the investors did not think they would either... what happened is that the gvmt thought that the economy would suffer a lot more IF they were not bailed out.. so now we have an expectation that if this happens again there will be bailouts... you can pass any kind of law you want, but that expectation will not go away.. if the perfect storm comes again... I don't care what laws are in place, the govmt will step in again and say it is for the good of the country....
Now, if Citi or BofA were in such bad shape... then the gvmt should have closed them down and sold them off in pieces... the same with FNMA and Freddie... GM, AIG, etc. should not have gotten all the money they got... but suffered through BK like any other business that can not pay their bills... I think the long run business environment would have been better...
Any laws passed will not matter to the people who cheated... like WAMU and a few others who did the liar loans and such... IMO these were against the current laws and someone should be prosecuted...
I do not have any problems with some of the suggestions... get higher capital ratios... make sure the bondholders know they might own the company if there is a problem (but, that is also a known in BK...so nothing new there)... claw back bonus can be OK, but what about all the people at AIG who were not involved with the one unit that was bad... should people high up in the life insurance group suffer because 'the other guy' cheated
To me, this sound like SOX... a lot of bluster with no real change... and a lot of costs to companies with no real benefits... why has not one person not been charged with a crime under SOX