They are, however, not introducing, say, transaction taxes which would make such microsecond (or less) transactions financially unfeasible. Which would probably do a lot to both making financial markets more stable and predictable, and employing high-grade physics, mathematics, and IT talent into more socially rewarding tasks.

Thank you.

I was thinking of a quote by Brian Cox that the UK has spent "more on Banks in 3 years than on Science funding since Jesus".

There are specific policies I would like to see implemented (I like the stabilising benefits of a Tobin Tax, agree mostly on progresive taxation) but to me thats just deckchairs on the Titanic. Getting your favourite deckchair picked for this years budget is not really a win.

Really I would like to see a generation of politicians worldwide who base decisions on empirical results, who act independantly of specific interests and work for the benefit of all. Democracy is pretty good at this. I just want it to be better at it.

Which of course means an electorate that votes for such politicians.

So its our fault still :-0

Edit - moved acerbic comment about deckchairs around a little

There's moving deck chairs, and there's tweaking feedback loops.

50+ years' experience with same-people-different-system states (East & West Germany, North & South Korea, Hong Kong/Taiwan vs. PRC, and others, not all democratic v. Communist states) show that small changes in annual growth rate can compound drastically over time.

While I'm not suggesting that all the ills of the world can be resolved just by adjusting various marginal tax rates, I am strongly suggesting that shifting incentives for major economic activity from rent-seeking value-extraction to socially-benefiting wealth-creation would be a big plus. Tim O'Reilly's been making some vary interesting comments in this regard over on Google+.