Robert Johnson Rob Johnson is the Director of Financial Reform at the Roosevelt Institute and is a regular contributor to NewDeal 2.0, which runs his "FinanceSeer" column. He serves on the United Nations Commission of Experts on Finance and International Monetary Reform. Previously, Dr. Johnson was a managing director at Soros Fund Management, where he managed a global currency, bond and equity portfolio specializing in emerging markets. He was also a managing director at the Bankers Trust Company. Dr. Johnson has served as chief economist of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee under the leadership of Chairman William Proxmire and was senior economist of the U.S. Senate Budget Committee under the leadership of Chairman Pete Domenici. Dr. Johnson was an executive producer of "Taxi to the Dark Side," an Oscar-winning documentary produced and directed by Alex Gibney. Dr. Johnson is a member of the Development Advisory Board of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., and is the former president of the National Scholastic Chess Foundation. He currently sits on the Board of Directors of the Economic Policy Institute and the Institute for America's Future. Dr. Johnson received his Ph.D. and M.A. in Economics from Princeton University and a B.S. in both Electrical Engineering and Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Matt Taibbi takes on David Brooks over populism

What are we supposed to think of David Brooks when 99.8 percent of the population is mad at the banks and he tries to reframe it as some sick deviance called “populism”?  All of the MBAs at Columbia and the hedge fund managers, and the PhD economists are now suddenly populists and have come off of their moorings? David Brooks just cannot seem to look power in the eye without sucking up.

Taibbi reams him out and he deserves it. Click here to read article.

Kakutani’s Kowardice

At the Daily Howler, Bob Somerby decodes the snotty condescension that substitutes for a real review of the book. Looking down her nose, Michiko Kakutani just cannot stick to the economics. Is it “populist” to have a distaste for Too Big to Fail and the Lemon Socialism of Heads Big Banks Win and Tails the Taxpayer loses??? I do not know of one hedge fund manager or Ivy League educated policy official who will argue in favor of such an environment. Perhaps Kakutani stands alone above us all, financiers and scholars included, with our dirty and unwashed distaste for subsidies…

FCIC hearings must shatter the ’sociopathic nature’ of Wall Street

Reporting live from the hearings, Rob Johnson argues that the FCIC hearings must challenge Wall Street to reexamine its role in society.

The Hearings of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission began belatedly this morning. Carrying a structure of decision making that appears to be designed to make it hard to get things done, Chairman Phil Angelides has a gargantuan task before him. The first session, which is a beginning, did have moments of import. Angelides acquitted himself well when he reminded Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein of the fact that there were people on the other side of the losses, particularly…

Reviving Confidence in the American Economy - China, Investment and the Deficit Hawks

Rob Johnson, Director of Financial Reform at the Roosevelt Institute, explains how the U.S. can regain competitiveness and revitalize its economy.

Since the early 1980s, rises in the living standard of middle class United States citizens have not kept up with the gains in labor productivity. Wages in the middle class have been close to flat. At the same time, consumer spending continued to grow abetted by innovations in consumer finance that supported ever-higher levels of consumption for any level of income. The credit crisis of 2008-9 has ended and unmasked the contradictions inherent in this unstable system and also in the…

As Frank Zappa would say…

“This is the crux of the biscuit”

From Ryan Grim on HuffPo (”Wall Street Banks Tricking Little Guys Into Lobbying for Them”)”:

Wall Street titans, recognizing that they have something of a credibility problem when it comes to opposing regulatory reform, are enlisting more sympathetic, everyday folks to lobby on their behalf on Capitol Hill.

Bankers, brokers and swaps dealers have been browbeating their clients — farmers, fuel companies, airlines, municipal power companies — who are the “end users” of financial derivatives: Lobby Congress against reform of the derivatives market, the bankers say, or the cost of your derivative deals will skyrocket.

“There are many…

No Change to Believe In: Finance is much the same as ever.

Writing for Newsweek, Rob Johnson explores the obstacles to financial reform. Will it take another meltdown to get them?

The worst crisis since the Great Depression is entering its third year — the recession actually began in late 2007. Trillions of dollars have been lost worldwide, both on the balance sheets of financial institutions, and more profoundly in lost GDP and employment. Yet so far there is no serious legislation in the pipeline that would address the causes of the meltdown by radically overhauling the banking and mortgage-finance systems and regulating trade in risky assets like derivatives.

There are four reasons for…

If only they had been in Charge instead of Geithner/Bernanke and Paulson

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Reflections on Obama, One Year Later: ‘Tragically Charismatic’

One year after Obama’s election, Rob Johnson, Director of Financial Reform at the Roosevelt Institute, looks at his promise, his tragic flaw, and the need for the President to stand up to powerful industry groups if he is to stem the tide of public cynicism.

Barack Obama was elected to the White House just after the turmoil of TARP and the climax of the crisis of financial markets. People throughout the country had deep suspicions of the government, and justifiably so. After all, the Bush years were a feeding frenzy for cronyism and corporate welfare. The TARP and the AIG scandals emitted…

New Agenda for America: Will the Day that Lehman Died Mark the Movement to a New Paradigm?

To mark the 80th Anniversary of the Great Crash of ‘29, we asked 15 progressive thinkers to write about lessons learned and what lies ahead. Together, their reflections constitute a New Agenda for America — a message of how the ideals of a fair society should apply to the economic and social policies of our time.

Today marks the 80th anniversary of an epochal day in this country’s history — the beginning of what became the Great Depression. The widespread misery that followed changed our ways of conceiving of the economy and how a good society should operate. While there have been…

Opening night in Chicago: Senator Durbin denounces unfairness; calls for reform

Rob Johnson, Director of the Economic Policy Initiative of the Roosevelt Institute, is on the ground in Chicago, where thousands of Americans have gathered to protest bank abuse. Johnson reflects on the reform needed, and ask the provocative question: Should women regulate finance?

“There were times when I thought I couldn’t last for long
But now I think I’m able to carry on
It’s been a long, been a long time coming
But I know a change is gonna come, oh yes it will”

~~Sam Cooke: A Change is Gonna Come

Opening night at the Showdown in Chicago. Senator Durbin from Illinois gave a rousing speech…