Americans have grudgingly supported the use of their taxes to save the financial ?system and economy. Unfortunately, this required rescuing many companies considered “too big to fail” that individually did not deserve to be saved. Taxpayers resent their money being used to keep these companies out of bankruptcy and, in some cases, protect the multi-million dollar compensation packages of those who caused the crisis. In short, Americans understand the need to protect the financial system, but do not want the events of a year ago to happen again.

So one would think that we would be putting in place changes to prevent future catastrophes or at least substantially reduce the cost to taxpayers. But to date, there have been only short-term, stop-gap measures.

There are three areas where action could be taken right now: new capital requirements, profit-based compensation and greater board control over risk management and pay.