FACTBOX: Obama's ideas on Wall Street reform

(Reuters) - U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama has called for a broad overhaul of how big banks, Wall Street investment houses and other financial players are regulated.

He says the aim is to prevent crises such as the housing-market meltdown that has left the economy on the edge of a recession and made it harder for consumers and businesses to get access to credit.

Austan Goolsbee, a senior economic adviser to Obama, told Reuters in an interview that the Democratic candidate could begin a push for a financial regulatory overhaul early if he is elected to the White House.

Following are six principles Obama has laid out that would form the basis of his plan.

- Any institution that has access to credit from the Federal Reserve in its role as lender of last resort must be subject to basic supervisory oversight by the Fed. Those regulations should include liquidity and capital requirements.

- Regulations of financial institutions should be tightened up with steps such as a strengthening of capital requirements and guarding against conflict of interest by rating agencies. The U.S. effort should include coordination with regulators abroad to try to achieve some consistency.

- An overlapping system of U.S. regulatory agencies should be streamlined.

- Financial-market players should be regulated for what they do, not for what they are.

- U.S. regulators should crack down on trading activity that crosses the line into market manipulation.

- A financial oversight commission should be established that would try to anticipate problems in the financial system before they develop into crises and serve to advise the president, Congress and regulators.

The panel would consist of people from a variety of backgrounds, including the insurance, investment banking and commercial banking industries.

The panel would watch for activity that might fall through the cracks of regulatory agencies.

(Reporting by Caren Bohan; Editing by Patricia Wilson)