Today’s quote of the day comes courtesy of Felix Salmon, who thinks we need Super Mario to come in and clean some financial pipes:

It seems we don’t need Ben Bernanke any more, we need Super Mario to come in and unclog those pipes. It’s a hugely important job, but the problem is that no one knows how to do it, especially insofar as the clogs look like rational market pricing more than crisis-related market inefficiency. (Remember, the prepayable fixed-rate 30-year mortgage itself is something which is never found in a laissez-faire capitalist system: only government intervention can ever persuade banks to issue such things.)

So who will be this Super Mario of finance? Click through the post to see a startling long-term trend in mortgage originations vs. FICO scores.