First, You can read this graph in many ways, including that everyone has become more wealthy in a short period of time.
Second, all of guilmarin's points:
1) Transparency - Only politicians would disagree with this. Good idea.
2) As other readers pointed out, this is a red herring, and would not solve anything.
3) This has the effect of killing the messenger, and there is a lot of evidence that derivatives are extremely helpful to markets as an information tool and reducing volatility. I certainly can't come up with a compelling moral reason to limit free people from doing what they want with their property.
4) The tax code should be simplified, but because simplicity is inherently better. Removing the corporate tax, as indicated, would both decrease complexity and promote investment.
5) Do you have any evidence that junior senators and representatives are better or worse? I could see a problem with lame ducks increasing their cronyism rather than decreasing it. I don't have an intrinsic opinion on this, but certainly sounds like a reasonable goal if you can come up with a clear mechanism on how this would help and particularly data to support. Looking at incumbent stuff might be a good way to do this.
I disagree with your second point. I think that making banks which do more than lending money to businesses/individuals into partnerships will do a lot of good. They won't stiff the US tax-payer with the bill by saying that they are too big to fail and that they risked US tax-payer deposits, as is the case of BofA. If a partnership wants to take big risks that's their decision. I'm suggesting to remove the moral hazard, by using the threat of financial system collapse as a stick to get the US gov't to foot the risk bill. 3. I do not say kill derivatives, you read that wrong. I'm more concerned with HFT. That is trades that are decided on by computers and executed in the single digit milliseconds, contribute to the hollowing out of buildings downtown for data-centers, etc. 4. removing the corporate tax is probably too much of a shock to the system, I think aligning it with the personal tax, eliminating loopholes in both, and lowering both is a much better idea. 5. I think that about 20 years is a long enough time to build relationships and get things that you want done. I think that there is cultural and idea turnover each generation that needs to be reflected in the bodies that represent it. Cleaning out the old gives way to the new and the like. I also think that since we limit terms for Presidents that we should do the same in other places. I think that long-standing senators can be every bit as much a tyrant as a permanent president, albeit on a lesser scale.
Regarding the separation of investment banking from retail banking, I am strongly in favour of this.
However at the moment, investment banking subsidises retail banking quite significantly, if you change this then banks will start charging for retail accounts.
There are a couple of solutions to this, but they all basically come down to the same thing, someone has to pay for the retail banking. Either it comes directly from the customer as a periodic payment or it is funded by taxation, I suggest the later because arguably a retail bank account is a necessary part of modern life in the west and could be considered a utility.
I would personally like to see retail only banks that charge and are strongly regulated to avoid bailouts in the future.
Investment banks should be allowed to offer retail services, but they should be forced to make it clear to the customer that if their investment arm fails, there will be no bailout from the government and they could lose all their money.
Let the people who want to play roulette and let those that don't have an option too.
Sadly this kinda depends on their being enough consumers who don't want to play roulette.
Second, all of guilmarin's points: 1) Transparency - Only politicians would disagree with this. Good idea. 2) As other readers pointed out, this is a red herring, and would not solve anything. 3) This has the effect of killing the messenger, and there is a lot of evidence that derivatives are extremely helpful to markets as an information tool and reducing volatility. I certainly can't come up with a compelling moral reason to limit free people from doing what they want with their property. 4) The tax code should be simplified, but because simplicity is inherently better. Removing the corporate tax, as indicated, would both decrease complexity and promote investment. 5) Do you have any evidence that junior senators and representatives are better or worse? I could see a problem with lame ducks increasing their cronyism rather than decreasing it. I don't have an intrinsic opinion on this, but certainly sounds like a reasonable goal if you can come up with a clear mechanism on how this would help and particularly data to support. Looking at incumbent stuff might be a good way to do this.