Revolving Door

The fact that the Fed’s current leadership team made or benefitted from multimillion dollar transactions contextualizes what we’ve seen at the Boston and Dallas regional banks: Chair Powell has facilitated a broad culture of lax ethical practices at the highest levels of the nation’s central bank.

Kaplan and Rosengren’s scandals aren’t the only ethics questions surrounding the Fed leadership’s conduct which merit greater scrutiny.

For those less familiar with the Carlyle Group, the private equity firm where Powell was a partner and senior lawyer from 1997 – 2005, here’s a quick overview of their history with capitalizing on political connections and the revolving door.

Phillips has done the bidding of utilities giants during his time on the D.C. Public Service Commission, and spent years working for corporate BigLaw firms which represent oil and gas interests.

Apparently, Harris just doesn’t get why regulators have to be so skeptical of the industry all the time—which makes sense, coming from a fintech executive who’s advocated for the industry on both sides of the revolving door.

A financial disclosure reveals that Special Envoy for Energy Affairs Amos Hochstein operated a shadow consultancy with foreign fossil fuel clients.

With the right staff at the helm, USDA’s Rural Development Division could be the key to rebuilding rural America.

Given a choice between someone who’s dedicated her career to fighting for Social Security recipients, a corporate ally with only a passing interest in the program, and an ethics law violator, Biden shouldn’t have a hard time choosing.

The following points are taken from Revolving Door Project’s extensive research document on Jerome Powell’s private-sector record, which includes work at union-busting and fossil fuel-investing firms.

Personnel vacancies and Big Pharma allies in the Biden administration threaten a landmark executive order on competition.

Hochstein is not even a skeptic of the fossil fuel industry, much less an environmentalist. His life’s work has been planting American flags on global fossil fuel reserves, facilitating the drilling and pumping of their contents, and inflicting pain on anyone who gets in the way.

Today, a coalition of 23 environmental, labor, and good government organizations called on President Biden to remove Thomas Workman from his role as the independent member with insurance expertise on the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), the interagency panel which identifies and addresses systemic risks to the financial system. 

During his time at the Carlyle Group, the firm repeatedly engaged in union-busting layoffs, climate-damaging fossil fuel investment projects, and more. 

For the sake of American workers, racial justice, financial security, and the climate, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell should not be renominated for a second term.

SKDKnickerbocker more or less specializes in running interference for deeply awful companies when a Democratic administration might be inclined to have them face consequences for the harms they cause.