Paul Volker and the Group of 30 have released their report on regulation for the financial industry post crisis.  Volker is advisor to Obama.  They are careful to avoid commentary on the “fixes” but have focussed on the reforms.  Its a wide ranging and sensible report, dealing with the non bank sector, ie hedge funds, and with off balance sheet transactions and derivatives.

G30

UPDATE:

The Economist has a great peace here summarising the G30 report – How to Fix Finance.

The most notable aspect of the report is the call for separation of invesments from banking.  They point out the irresponsibility of using traditional bank deposits and the associated safety requirements for sepculative investments is fundamentally bad.

Under the proposals, banks that are deemed systemically important would face restrictions—in the form of “strict” capital requirements—on high-risk proprietary activities, that is bets made using their own money. While this would not quite mean a return in America to the separation of commercial banking and investment banking that ended with the repeal of the Glass-Steagall act in 1999, it would strongly encourage the investment-banking arms of universal banks to focus on client businesses, such as merger advice, rather than trading. One reason for separating these functions is that they seem to be “unmanageable in financial conglomerates”, says Mr Volcker.