Imagine if the big banks could design a dream ticket from today’s crop of politicians. Could it do any better than the Republican tandem of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin? .....

Wall Street loves Ryan because he’s bringing back an old idea: he wants to privatize Social Security.... Regardless of your position, there’s no denying who it would benefit: big brokerages. That’s because even though SSA would “manage” the program, it would need Wall Street’s help: brokers, market-makers, specialists, you name it. Suddenly the financial industry would be getting up to $340 billion, half of Social Security’s 2011 revenue, for fees, commissions and other value-added services.

One study predicted that by 2050 every stock and bond in the U.S. market would be owned by Social Security. You can almost hear Wall Street slobbering....(Ryan) voted for the bank bailouts in 2008. He voted against a bill in 2009 what would have modified bankruptcy rules so homeowners could avoid foreclosure......Privatizing Social Security has long been the Holy Grail of Wall Street. With Paul Ryan on the ticket, Republicans in control of the House of Representatives and memories of 2008’s crash fading, there’s a chance that less than a decade after nearly wrecking the global economy, big financial interests could get the power to finish the job.