Democracy Roundtable: Right Changes Now Would Build Strong Future
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What will the economy be like in 2021? That’s the question five progressive experts venture to answer as part of an online roundtable in the latest issue of Democracy: The Journal of Ideas. Twice a year, the magazine poses a question to experts about what they foresee for the country in 2021 and posts the discussion on its website and in the publication.
The winter 2010 theme is focused on jobs and the economy in 2021. AFL-CIO Deputy Chief of Staff Thea Lee, one of the panel experts on this subject, said if we are prosperous and economically strong in 2021, it’s because in 2010 we recognized that we were on a path that was leading to greater erosion of the middle class.
The path that we were on was also undermining our ability to innovate and reap the fruits of innovation. I totally agree with the need for massive and targeted public investments in all the areas that we’ve talked about: clean energy, infrastructure, skills and education.
Symposium to Tackle Challenge of Putting America Back to Work
The contrast is staggering: While Wall Street celebrates record earnings for the fat cats at the top financial firms, the reality on Main Street is that more than one in six working Americans is now unemployed or underemployed.
In the midst of this jobless “recovery,” leading policymakers and experts will gather to discuss how public policy should respond to this unprecedented unemployment crisis at the conference, “The Jobs Deficit: The Challenge of Putting America Back to Work.” The New America Foundation’s Bernard L. Schwartz Economic Symposium is sponsoring the discussion Oct. 20 in Washington, D.C.
For more information and to register for the symposium, click here.
Dorgan: Financial Regulation Not a Four-Letter Word
Congress must pass strong, effective financial regulations to prevent another economic meltdown and to protect the American consumer, a leading senator said. Speaking this morning at the New America Foundation, Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), said the nation’s economic wreckage can be traced back to the decision a decade ago to deregulate the financial system.
Not only did deregulation open up opportunities and incentives for risky banking behavior, but federal regulators who were supposed to be watching the financial industry weren’t doing their jobs, Dorgan said.
As early as 1994, Dorgan warned of the risks posed by one of the key ingredients in the recent financial collapse: the complex financial packages known as derivatives. In a Washington Monthly magazine cover story, “Very Risky Business,” he predicted the cascading failures of large lending institutions, the collapse of Fannie Mae, taxpayer-funded bailouts.
