Transparency is the word of the moment, in politics and world affairs and finance.

Especially finance.

What is the Madoff scandal, after all, other than a giant failure of transparency?  When a $50 billion enterprise is audited by, essentially, two guys at the end of a strip mall in New Jersey, maybe that should have been, um, disclosed.

So how about this?

In addition to all of the ratings agencies and growth indices, how about a new index?  How about something called The Transparency Index for companies and financial institutions?

This wouldn't measure how well they're doing, or how solvent they are, or anything other than how much information is out there to base an investment decision on.  Enron might have been a high-flying stock, but it would have had a lousy Transparency Index, due to its byzantine Special Purpose Entities.

The market would decide whether it matters or not if, say, Lehman Brothers has too much value at risk.  But at least they'd have a way to judge if Lehman is transparently reporting what its risk is.

I'm sure there's a flaw here somewhere.  But I'm also sure that a smart, enterprising, now-unemployed quant guy could figure out how to do this, do it, and create a brand as powerful and important as the Dow.