First, it attempts to tackle the problem of financial institutions that are too big to fail.

ECONOMIST: Fixing finance

In this world of increasing immediacy and unpredictability, do financial institutions have to live with the problem of isolated data warehouses, or is there a new possibility they can integrate those massive data sets and apply technologies like business analytics to uncover patterns and make correlations that might reveal, say, at-risk mortgages, based on changes in individuals' credit card use?

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In part he believes that the problem is economic institutions: regulatory barriers to entrepreneurship, a financial system that favours insiders, and a high level of input from labour, which tends to be biased towards the status quo.

ECONOMIST: Why can't Europe's economies catch up with America?

But authorities in Andalusia may have complicated a massive selloff of Spain's problem real-estate assets, highlighting the obstacles facing efforts by financial institutions in Europe's hardest hit countries to take tough actions.

WSJ: Spain Region Upsets Asset-Sale Plan

The problem with such a tax is that, unless it is worldwide, financial institutions will simply migrate to countries that do not adopt it.

FORBES: Avoiding The Austerity Death Spiral

"Since the problem we've gotten into is because of excessive risk by banks and other financial institutions, the policymakers need to be careful that they don't remove a valuable kind of market discipline that banks would otherwise face, " he said.

NPR: FDIC Considers Insuring Larger Bank Accounts

It greatly magnified and concentrated the mortgage valuation problem, allowed derivative investors to game the system and added to the perception of insolvency for many of the financial institutions which then had to be bailed out.

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