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December 05, 2022 | The American Prospect
Big Tech’s Old Friend Helms Key Biden Administration Role
Staring down the barrel of a Republican-controlled House in 2023, Democrats are juggling a litany of legislative priorities during the current lame-duck session. In addition to Congress’s looming obligation to fund an omnibus spending bill to fund the government, the pressure is on to enshrine same-sex marriage rights into law, bolster federal electoral procedures, add protections for pregnant women on the job, overhaul the farmworker visa program, prevent future Schedules F, and much more.
November 24, 2022 | The American Prospect
Quants, Carbon, and Climate Change
It’s been a bad few weeks for the sort of opinionated center-left pundit who prides themselves on data-driven, hyper-quantitative approaches to solving society’s intractable problems.
November 23, 2022 | The New Republic
Timi Iwayemi Dylan Gyauch-Lewis
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.
November 16, 2022 | The American Prospect
The Biden Administration Does Not Need Another Wall Street Adviser
The White House does not need to hire someone to get a banker’s perspective on inflation.
November 14, 2022 | The Nation
Money From Nothing: Sam Bankman-Fried’s Crypto Shakedown
The rapid meltdown of FTX stands as one of the most gruesome chapters in the annals of investment fiascos: think of the false technological promises of Elizabeth Holmes’s Theranos grift combined with the evaporation of Bernie Madoff’s prestigious Ponzi fund. But the saga of FTX involves much more than either the vanity and hubris of Holmes’s fraud offensive or the deceptive practices of the Madoff scam. The rapid rise and fall of Bankman-Fried points up the delusional character of information-age capitalism; Far from standing as an outlying trend within the crypto investment world, Bankman-Fried’s scam was nestled at the very heart of its prevailing business model.
October 31, 2022 | The American Prospect
How Governing Can Motivate Politics
An alternate vision for how Democrats could bring the fight to the midterms by taking action in Congress and the White House
October 24, 2022 | The American Prospect
The Unlikely Origins of the Chamber-Chopra War
Big business could soon get their chance to kill the CFPB for good, thanks in part to former Obama aide William Daley.
October 21, 2022 | Common Dreams
Kroger Goes From Supermarket to Superpower
Is the corporate media doing a good enough job of explaining the machinations and implications of a merger between the nation’s two largest grocery chains?
October 07, 2022 | The American Prospect
How Banks Are Defending Their Right To Discriminate
To any normal person, the idea that discrimination might not be “unfair, deceptive, or abusive” is ridiculous.
October 03, 2022 | The American Prospect
Pat Toomey Blockades Biden’s Housing Nominees Amid Historic Rent Hikes
The Department of Housing and Urban Development is lacking vital staff during a crisis of housing affordability.
September 23, 2022 | The American Prospect
The Problem With Emission Reduction Models
They are partially based on what even some of the modelers acknowledge are faulty data, particularly on methane.
September 08, 2022 | The American Prospect
To Save The Climate, Hire More Civil Servants
The kind of civil service we build is indicative of what our climate strategy will be.
September 02, 2022 | The American Prospect
Department of CommerceEthics in GovernmentIntellectual PropertyPatent and Trademark OfficeRevolving Door
Trump’s Patent Director Pressured Judges to Rule in His Law Firm’s Favor
There are numerous ways for the Biden administration to implement these safeguards. One option would be to issue a broad executive order that sets a path to restore public trust in the Patent Office. This order would require that the USPTO create a publicly available record of intervention in appeal proceedings by staff other than APJs, and outline new ethics practices that would ensure key USPTO staff recuse themselves from matters involving prior clients or former employers, and refrain from representing clients or working for companies whose cases they decide for at least three years.
August 26, 2022 | The American Prospect
Marc Goldwein And The Limits Of Deficit Scolding
“All spending is bad” is simply not a useful principle for assessing all policy. What we spend money on speaks to what our leaders want society to value.
August 25, 2022 | Democracy Journal
Eleanor Eagan Hannah Story Brown
Department of JusticeEthics in GovernmentFinancial RegulationIndependent Agencies
Enforcement: The Untapped Resource
Chronic underfunding means that the agencies with the most laudable missions—the ones seeking to protect ordinary Americans from profit-driven exploitation—often struggle to go up against powerful corporate interests. Strengthening funding for enforcement to protect Americans from environmental, health, consumer, and labor standards violations is an existing, easily justifiable tool for changing that balance of power.