Fintech

Once again Summers has resigned just before a company became embroiled in scandal.

The former Treasury Secretary and current Harvard professor abruptly resigned just a week before reports of federal investigation went public. The media cannot allow his feeble attempt to avoid attention work yet again.

Dissenting Commissioner Christy Goldsmith Romero, meanwhile, warned that the agency’s approval of a vertically integrated crypto market threatens to open a Pandora’s box.

CFTC Chair Rostin Behnam’s term doesn’t end until 2026, but there are rumblings of an early exit to the private sector. Place your bets where he’ll end up next!

The Revolving Door Project, A Government Ethics Watchdog, Alerts Media Of Possibility That CFTC Chair Rostin Behnam Is Considering Leaving Government To Cash Out In Private Industry

Revolving Door Statement on Crypto proponent Larry Summers joining the board of Sam Altman’s OpenAI

Continued reliance on underregulated financial technology companies could stand to further harm the agency’s reputation and goals for lending equity.

It’s high time that members of the press who regularly turn to Summers for his views on the economy begin questioning him on how he is able to adequately perform his multiple advisory roles and moreover, why there is a pattern of illegality at firms he advises. Or they could simply toss him to the aether, and platform non-conflicted experts instead.

Short-seller Hindenburg Research says the payments mogul Block has inflated user metrics, ignored widespread criminal transactions on its platforms, and evaded regulations.

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

A leading voice in this push is Sam Bankman-Fried, 30-year-old CEO of crypto trading exchange FTX. Christened by some as a crypto prince and others as Washington’s aspiring kingmaker, Bankman-Fried has in the past year developed an extensive crypto policy agenda that entails revolving-door hiring of former CFTC officials, formation of super PACs, and congressional campaign donations.

Over a decade after the financial crisis, few would still dispute that the revolving door between financial regulators and the financial industry helped pave the way for economic disaster. In the years preceding the crash, regulators who came from the country’s largest banks and planned to promptly return to them, removed regulatory restraints and turned a blind eye to the predictably dangerous effects (see, e.g. Robert Rubin and Alan Greenspan). In the next administration, different regulators drawn from the same well let the fraudsters off the hook and left the working people who had fallen victim to them out to dry.  

President Biden has repeatedly declared himself “the most pro-union President you’ve ever seen.” But a pro-labor President should also support the workers for whom he’s the boss — namely, the federal civil service.