Maybe Mr. Kristoff is too young to remember, but New York used to have a tax on financial transactions - a tax on every sale of securities. New York was forced to give up this tax because it just drove business out of New York. No one needs to trade securities on the NYSE and OTC derivatives can be traded anywhere or nowhere (i.e., only in cyberspace). If the US were to adopt a tax on financial transactions, the result would be the same: hello, Hong Kong, goodbye NY and Chicago.

His other suggestions range from very good (taxing carried interest as ordinary income on the date it vests) to OK (requiring big banks to have more capital). What would be better than higher capital requirements would be eliminating the role of the Government as lender of last resort to troubled financial institutions - i.e., no more bailouts.