Ethics in Government

Rolling back Trump’s framework just means that FSOC is allowing itself to see the financial system through a realistic lens.

As the revelations of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s flagrant corruption continue to unspool, scrutiny of the weak ethics rules binding the Court has intensified. The Senate Judiciary Committee is supposed to oversee the Court, but it has proven itself not remotely up to the task of rooting out judicial corruption. And amid this disturbing situation, a Supreme Court conference this Friday provides an opening for Court conservatives to try to game their few ethical limits in plain sight.

There is no reasonable ambiguity about this. If the ProPublica reporting is accurate, Thomas has knowingly and brazenly violated federal ethics law for decades.

Despite years of our best advice, and indeed the better judgments of Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other progressives in Congress, government watchdogs like Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) and others, nearly one year ago President Joe Biden disappointed his responsibility to the public and to his own economic agenda by renominating Donald Trump’s hand picked head of the Fed: Jerome Powell. Biden bafflingly stuck by Powell despite his years of betraying labor unions, environmental groups and frontline communities, and the middle class. As a result, broad coalitions of folks concerned about the climate crisis, about the long term safety and stability of our financial system, about attacks on labor and the working class, about housing insecurity and the long term impacts of the pandemic, mobilized against Powell’s renomination because his storied track record of, well, making each of these things (and more!) worse.

No one can reasonably retain a shred of benefit of the doubt in the face of this evidence.

American workers have just started getting the barest minimum of a few lucky breaks. But that is terrifying to Rattner and his fellow moguls, so they need some sort of rational argument for why these bare scraps of power are actually bad for everyone.

Larry Summers, Steven Rattner, Marc Goldwein, Maya MacGuineas Among Top Targets

As of now, Barr is assigned to investigate supervisory failures that occurred under his watch featuring a bank that catered in particular to the crypto and fintech industries which Barr was so active in immediately prior to revolving back into government. Barr is a walking conflict of interest. His central role in the investigation is damning

It’s been over 764 days since Donald Trump left the White House, yet his legacy still – even years into Biden’s own term – continues to pervade our highest echelons of government.

Christine Wilson leaving the FTC is good news for anyone who cares about effective antitrust enforcement. A quintessential revolving door figure, Wilson’s tenure was only useful to her job prospects once she decided it was time to leave the FTC.

Eh, not really.

Eberly and her co-author, fellow economist Arvind Krishnamurthy, find that Geithner’s policies were excellent, and his biggest critics should shut up.

Insider-trading can’t keep Powell’s right-hand man from becoming CNBC’s new favorite expert.