“JOBS” Disaster Looms

By Simon Johnson The Senate is due to vote today on the so-called “JOBS” bill – a piece of legislation, originating in the House, which aims to reduce disclosure and other securities law protections for investors (see my review yesterday; a link to HR3606 is here).

By Simon Johnson In Washington today, “bipartisan” is a loaded term. The traditional usage of bipartisan is an agreement across the usual political divide – sometimes a good idea and in many cases the only way to get things done. But a darker meaning applies all too frequently – a group in which the members, irrespective of party affiliation, are very close to special interests and work to advance an agenda that helps a few powerful people while hurting the rest of us.

By Simon Johnson, co-author of White House Burning: The Founding Fathers, Our National Debt, And Why It Matters To You

By Simon Johnson President Obama is embarked on a major charm offensive with regard to the business sector, as seen for example in the appointments of Bill Daley (ex-JP Morgan; now White House chief of staff) and Jeff Immelt (still head of GE, now also the president’s top outside economic adviser). This should not be an uphill struggle – much of the corporate sector, particularly bigger and more global businesses, is doing well in terms of profits and presumably C-suite remuneration.

By Simon Johnson After 9 months of hard fighting, yesterday financial reform came down to this: an amendment, proposed by Senators Jeff Merkley and Carl Levin that would have forced big banks to get rid of their speculative proprietary trading activities (i.e., a relatively strong version of the Volcker Rule.) 

Republicans in the House of Representatives passed a debt prioritization bill on Thursday that one leading Democrat called one of the worst ideas that has ever been brought for consideration in the House.