Few of us realize it, but withour acquiescence, Uncle Sam has spent decades running the world's largest Ponzi scheme, taking ever-larger sums from each young generation and handing them to the old in the form of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits.
But it will enshrine a new principle in our financial system: From now on, instead of competing to see who can come up with the cleverest scheme to make the quickest buck, financial institutions will compete to see who can make the better product and the better service.