Banks must stop dividend payouts, buybacks during good times

Poor judgment by bankers helped get us into this crisis. They relied too much on borrowed money, lent too freely to shoddy customers and got taken in by their own sophisticated financial models.

So you would think the last thing anyone would want to do is rely more heavily on their judgment in the hope they'll do better next time.

Unless, that is, you're a banker. Many believe one way to prevent today's troubles from recurring would be to give banks more wiggle room over how much money they put aside to cover loans that might go bad. That would let them build up rainy day funds when times are good so they can bolster profit during slumps.