The public would receive guidelines and education about the financial system and, a clear understanding of the risk involved with the different Financial products. The goal being to foster an understanding and the ability to make well informed choices.

Most people who drink Pepsi are not under the impression that they are doing it for the nutritional value. Despite FDA guidelines the choice to drink 7 Pepsi's a day is still there, but so is education and transparency about soda and it’s ingredients. Having this information let's us decide to have 1 Pepsi a week as opposed to 7 a day. And, in general Pepsi as a company is still doing well.

In the case of Financial products, the people who want to take risk should have that option.

If a Hedge Fund is worried about Transparency ruining their strategy then they can be categorized as high risk and the investors who want to put their money in those products can do so. But, the consumers and investors who are trying to save for retirement and send their children to college can put their money in something safer and less opaque.

By having the SEC, a government regulated and funded agency providing guidelines and standards by which to compare different products across different companies; an agency elected by the people could be held accountable for regulatory reform.

The banks could still push their products, but the consumer and non professional investor would understand the risk involved with having their retirement fund in mostly equity based securities as opposed to putting it in Passbook saving.

The goal is to make it so a small business owner or not for profit would most likely not put their working capital in a Mortgage Back Security and their financial Advisor would not ask them too, because it would be clearly listed on the SEC website that it would be too risky to do so. The understanding of financial risk would be fostered by an independent body that is not trying to sell a product.

For additional information in reference to this article, resources or “How to’s contact:
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Barbara Horne
barbara@costsandprofit.com

Other Writings
http://seekingalpha.com/author/barbara-horne/articles

http://www.theglasshammer.com/news/2009/08/19/5-tips-for-executive-women-concerning-corporate-social-responsibility/