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March 22, 2023 | The Sling

Dylan Gyauch-Lewis

Op-Ed Department of TransportationExecutive BranchIndependent AgenciesLabor

Too Big To Rail: Railroads, Safety, and Accountability

Unfortunately, America’s rail workers are all too familiar with the consequences of how the railroad industry has been operated over the past 30 years. Precision scheduled railroading (PSR) has made the difference. PSR is a business model focused on reducing overhead costs and generating returns for shareholders. Similar to many other business models driven by financialization, it’s effectively  a scheme by giant railroad operators to cut staff and backup resources, push the remaining equipment and personnel to the breaking point, and funnel as much of the cash as possible to Wall Street. And by increasing market concentration even further, the recently approved rail merger between Canadian Pacific (CP) and Kansas City Southern (KCS) promises to make the situation even more dire — for railroad workers, for the communities our rail lines pass through, and for the American economy.

December 21, 2022

Hannah Story Brown Andrea Beaty Dorothy Slater Dylan Gyauch-Lewis Julian Scoffield KJ Boyle Max Moran Timi Iwayemi Toni Aguilar Rosenthal

Newsletter Ethics in GovernmentExecutive BranchLarry SummersRevolving Door

RDP’s 150th Newsletter: Our 2022 Revolving Door Superlatives

How better to mark the darkest day of the year than with a bit of dark humor? This winter solstice, we present our 2022 Revolving Door Superlatives, where we spotlight the most craven, captured, and corrupt personnel and policy debates of this past year. From Revolver of the Year to 2022’s Worst Look to our Biggest Personnel Nightmare Entering 2023, we have a positively ghoulish assemblage of honorees for your perverse reading pleasure. Take comfort, dear reader, in this at least: the days are only getting longer from here on out. 

November 23, 2022 | The New Republic

Timi Iwayemi Dylan Gyauch-Lewis

Op-Ed Congressional OversightCryptocurrencyFinancial RegulationIndependent Agencies

Don’t Fall for FTX’s Final Con

The FTX disaster should be all the impetus needed to kill off any new crypto industry–approved legislation. Instead, we need Congress to provide material support for financial regulators in the form of increased appropriations to guard against the next collapse. Much of the crypto industry is already subject to laws—the very ones that the SEC seeks to enforce and that the crypto industry broadly (not just Sam Bankman-Fried) seeks to evade by reducing the SEC’s jurisdiction ex post facto. Both the CFTC and SEC urgently need funds to fulfill their mandates. Crypto stretches these needs even further, but the need has existed for years. For decades, financial crimes have too often gone unpunished. This wasn’t for a lack of rules, but a lack of will, funds, and people willing to enforce them. Crypto doesn’t need special treatment, it needs to face the music.