Search Results for

January 26, 2021
If Biden Doesn’t Close Big Tech’s Revolving Door, The Right-Wing Will Eat Him Alive
The right-wing’s revolving door attacks on President Biden are intensifying, with a particular focus on the new President’s ties to Big Tech. Biden must beware the potency of these attacks and address them head-on.

January 26, 2021
Why The Next CFTC Chairperson Must Prioritize Climate Action Over Market Fads
Initially created to regulate futures derivatives on crops that had yet to be harvested, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) holds newfound possibility in the coming decade. It is absolutely crucial that a modern-day CFTC taps into the power it already holds to lead on climate action. Naturally, this necessitates a leader with a proven record of taking on corporate power. Any appointee should be prepared to advocate for the public interest, acknowledge the current reality of climate decay we find ourselves in, and creatively apply tools of the government to take immediate action.

January 22, 2021
Right-Wing “Holding Pen” Firm May Snag Antitrust Division If Susan Davies Is Appointed
In a disappointing continuation from the Trump Administration, Politico reported last week that a Kirkland & Ellis lawyer is in contention to help lead the Department of Justice, raising serious concerns among anti-monopoly advocates. According to the article, Susan Davies, a litigation partner at Kirkland, might be the next assistant attorney general for antitrust.

January 22, 2021
Big Tech’s Top Picks to Lead DOJ Antitrust Division
Big Tech has a huge stake in who Biden ultimately staffs his antitrust and tech regulators. These individuals will decide how aggressively to carry out Biden’s promises of reining in the political and market power of these companies. If Big Tech gets its way, Biden will staff his antitrust teams with its attorneys and allies, who have pushed back against calls to break up these monopolies and protected them against regulation and enforcement. But if Biden wants to keep his campaign promises to take on monopolies, he must shut the revolving door between the federal government and Big Tech. That starts by rejecting for top jobs the following Big Tech allies.

January 22, 2021
Fintech’s Gaze Into The Biden Administration
As President Biden continues to staff his administration, the nascent fintech industry will be keeping close watch on the personnel appointed to key regulatory positions. It would be prudent to keep private fintech evangelists away from the positions that are responsible for regulating these firms and cryptocurrencies.

January 22, 2021
Potential Comptroller of the Currency Mehrsa Baradaran’s Background
Baradaran seems committed to challenging the status quo of our financial system that sidelines poor and marginalized communities. The OCC has long been part of a banking system that reinforces racial injustice rather than addresses it — and that remained largely true even after Dodd-Frank was passed and implemented by Obama’s regulatory team. Voices like Baradaran’s are valuable in reconsidering financial regulation and helping raise the bar for who is and who is not an adequately zealous regulator.

January 21, 2021
Michael Barr's Past And Present Raise Deep Concerns If Appointed
If appointed to Biden’s OCC, Barr will confront one major new question for the primary federal regulator of banks: how to handle the emergent “fintech” industry of lending and payments apps. Disturbingly, Barr’s history advising and investing in the fintech industry suggests an approach similar to Trump’s own fintech-friendly stooge, former acting Comptroller Brian Brooks.

January 21, 2021
Why the Comptroller of the Currency Must Be a Climate Leader
The OCC could also update the Comptroller’s Handbook to guide bank examiners to measure climate risk in their assessments, which would force banks to measure climate risk in their own internal stress tests. This would also push banks to make environmentally sound decisions, because they would be recontextualized as financially savvy decisions.
January 21, 2021
To Build Back Better, Biden Must Fix Government
Yesterday, Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th President of the United States. President Biden has promised to build back a better America, but he faces a steep climb to reach this lofty goal. The nation is still reeling from an ongoing pandemic and recession, and the government has had to cope with massive shocks to the civil service, morale, and its basic functions during the Trump administration. To make good on his promise, Biden will need to undo the damage from Trump and decades of right-wing actions to undermine governance.

January 21, 2021
Biden Must Fire All Of Trump's Cronies Immediately
Donald Trump is no longer president, but Trumpism will loom large over the new administration if President Biden does not fire all of Trump’s political appointees immediately. From the Social Security Administration to US Attorneys, there are plenty of terminations that the new president must enact.

January 16, 2021
Biden’s Antitrust Minefield
The vast majority of Americans believe that the monopoly power of tech companies is a major problem for the economy and a corrupting political influence. Biden should heed these concerns and avoiding appointing Big Tech insiders and allies of monopolies to head crucial antitrust regulatory posts at the Department of Justice.

January 14, 2021
Joe Biden's Newest Climate Appointees Provide Reason For Cautious Optimism
These personnel additions should leave climate activists cautiously optimistic, and many of these individuals are examples of people we would like to see staffed in every department and agency throughout the federal government.

January 12, 2021
Making Government Work Must Be A Priority for New Congress
Over four years, the Trump administration pushed an already fragile government to the breaking point. Budget cuts, record civil service attrition and outright corruption (to name just a few) imperiled the most basic functions of the federal government to near collapse.

January 12, 2021
Gary Cohn, IBM, And A Tale As Old As Time
Amidst renewed furor to impeach Trump and expel Members of Congress for supporting the right wing Capitol Insurrection, more typical elite corruption goes without comment. IBM announced in January that Gary Cohn, Trump’s former head of the National Economic Council, would be appointed vice-chairman. Despite announcements that some corporations and lobbyists mulled temporarily suspending donations to Republicans inciting riots and IBM’s claim to support black lives, their announcement reveals the lie: Corporate America has no problem bringing high-level Trump appointees back into their elite fold.

January 12, 2021
Schedule F Still Poses a Grave Threat to the Civil Service
From the moment President Trump took office, he has been on a warpath with the civil service. He and his associates have waged an open war (and likely one behind closed doors as well) to seize control over federal employees just out of reach of easy firing. In October, as his presidency appeared rapidly to be approaching its end, he lobbed a bomb at the civil service system.