In an age of transparency one thing is still private.

I once overhead my mother in-law mention that girls really should "keep their privates private". One only needs to look at the likes of Girls Gone Wild or Dirty Scottsdale to realize the merits of this creed. Think about it. Paris Hilton becomes famous for having a sex tape and being rich. Then Kim Kardashian becomes famous for being friends with Paris, having a sex tape and a big butt. At least when J-Lo was famous for having a big butt she also had a singing and acting career. It begs the question, "is anything private these days?"

In an age of TMZ, celebrity blogs, twitter and 24 hour tabloid....err...news stations, we now know more about just about everyone. Do I really need to know about Letterman sleeping around at work? I doubt this would have happened with Johnny Carson. Do I really need to know that Clinton had a relationship with a porky intern? I hope this never happened with Reagan or Carter. But if it did, I am glad I never heard about it.

In the case of Letterman and Clinton, transparency led to forgiveness. If you admit and come clean, America will usually sympathize and forgive (it makes me think that maybe Bonds ought to take this advice and fess up to the steroid use). In the case of Kardashian and Hilton, transparency led to fame and fortune. The internet has created an information age where news travels at an alarmingly fast rate (made even faster by the fact that a lot of news outlets don't verify sources) and it is nearly impossible to keep anything private.

Yet one area of society lacks transparency and the ramifications are huge. I am referring to our economic system. Capitalism thrives under transparency. Transparency allows for consumers to make wise choices. It allows for businesses to adapt, grow and stay competitive.

A lack of transparency creates a system where average Joe's gamble their retirement by investing in funds that they assume are relatively safe. They don't realize these funds are involved in credit default swaps and other risky maneuvers. Or maybe they are more conservative and invest in a bond fund. The bonds are collateralized by mortgages and are given a AAA rating. Sounds safe. Real Estate seems stable. Nobody mentioned how many of those mortgages were subprime ARM's. Not long ago, most people thought a subprime ARM was what happened when the Diamondbacks went to the bullpen. "Randy Johnson has one hell of an arm...but that bullpen is full of subprime arms."

So maybe our society needs to focus less on what Kim Kardashian is up to (seriously, do we need to know that the her sister with the manface married Lamar Odom). Instead we should be concerned more with what Goldman Sachs is doing. When it comes to our financial system, lets make our privates public.