A People's Guide to the Economic Recovery Advisory Board

We note the Obama Administration named it's Economic Recovery Advisory Board today. While we are hopeful, we are not happy. This board will probably need to be modified before living up to it's potential. Here are it's members:

Chairman - Paul Volcker. Upside - Solid. The best there is. Should have remained Fed Chair. Downside - a little long in the tooth. (This is not age discrimination. Technology has much to do with this recession.)

Staff Director and Chief Economist. Austan Goolsbee - Probably not helpful. Chicago Economist...and they basically sank us into this mess. At least he is at the staff level.

Members - William H. Donaldson, Chairman, SEC (2003-2005). Solid. Called for market reform a long, long time ago. Ran a great firm, DLJ.

Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., President & CEO, TIAA-CREF. Solid. Next to Volcker, the best there is. The guy who saved the economy on September 11, 2001. (See "Bernanke's Fumbles Suggest Deeper Problems," originally posted on the Street Insight section of thestreet.com 5/5/2006 2:42 PM EST.)

Robert Wolf, Chairman & CEO, UBS Group Americas. Negative. (See Goolsbee - basically sank us into this mess.)

David F. Swensen, CIO, Yale University - Probably not helpful. Just some connected Yalie. Should be on staff.

Mark T. Gallogly, Founder & Managing Partner, Centerbridge Partners L.P. - Negative. Helped sink us into this mess...and made a fortune doing so.

Penny Pritzker, Chairman & Founder, Pritzker Realty Group. Neutral.

Jeffrey R. Immelt, CEO, GE - Positive. Has data and input from global sources.

John Doerr, Partner, Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers. Negative. Helped sink us into this mess...and made a fortune doing so.

Jim Owens, Chairman and CEO, Caterpillar Inc. - Positive. Actually makes something.

Monica C. Lozano, Publisher & Chief Executive Officer, La Opinion - Positive.

Charles E. Phillips, Jr., President, Oracle Corporation - Positive. Technology-centric.

Anna Burger, Chair, Change to Win - Unknown, but probably not helpful. Just some connected non profit. Another labor union, non-diverse at the executive level, whose base is made up of people of color. (See AFL-CIO, below.) Should be on staff.

Richard L. Trumka, Secretary-Treasurer, AFL-CIO - Negative. Non diverse organization at the executive level.

Laura D'Andrea Tyson, Dean, Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley - Probably not helpful. Another connected academic. Should be on staff.

Martin Feldstein, George F. Baker Professor of Economics, Harvard University - Yikes! Former Chief Economist to Reagan (helped sink us into this mess before we knew we were sunk.) Highly negative and definitely not helpful. Another connected academic. Should be on staff.

All in all,

Solid - 3
Positive - 3
Negative - 5
Probably not helpful - 4
Neutral - 1

We are in trouble and this group probably will not help.

Kamalanomics: Home and Health

Vice President Kamala Harris recently unveiled her economic plan, which builds upon and expands several initiatives from the Biden administration while adding new elements aimed at addressing economic challenges faced by American families. Her plan, dubbed the "Opportunity Economy" agenda, focuses on lowering costs for essential goods and services, particularly targeting housing, healthcare, and groceries. Key Components: 1. Housing: Harris proposes constructing three million new homes to address the housing supply crunch, which is more ambitious than Biden's two-million-home plan. She also advocates for a $40 billion "innovation fund" to encourage local governments to find solutions to housing shortages and make it harder for investment companies to buy up large numbers of rental properties, which has driven up rent prices. (See: Comments to the CalPERS Board of Administration, July 15, 2024 on Housing and Environmental Investing.) 2. Healthcare: Expanding on B...

Maternal Health Financing Facility for Black Women: A Solution to an Urgent Problem

Maternal mortality is a significant issue in the United States, with Black women disproportionately affected. Research conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has shown that Black women are more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than their white counterparts. However, the issue is not new, and despite the increasing amount of data available, the disparities have remained unaddressed for far too long. Creative Investment Research (CIR) is among the organizations that believe there is a solution to the problem. Through our proposed impact investing vehicle , the Maternal Health Financing Facility for Black Women (MHFFBW), we aim to tackle the mortality gap and support Black women during childbirth, which will, in turn, benefit their communities. The Facility, based on legally binding financing agreements containing terms and conditions that direct resources to individuals and institutions capable of addressing supply-side conditions at the heart...

William Michael Cunningham on Impact Investing, Blockchain, and Crowdfunding

September 2018 - 10 Questions William Michael Cunningham on Impact Investing, Blockchain, and Crowdfunding Interview by Carly Schulaka WHO: William Michael Cunningham WHAT: Economist, impact investing specialist, founder of Creative Investment Research WHAT'S ON HIS MIND: “Any finance professional in the U.S. should learn how to create a blockchain.” 1. You are an economist, an inventor, and an impact investing specialist. I’ve heard you say: “True innovation happens in a way that is independent of monetary returns.” How does this statement influence your work? It’s really about finding an interesting problem and applying financial technology to solving that problem or to dealing with that problem. You know, the people who invented the alphabet didn’t do so to make money. They had an interesting problem—communication on both a local and a grand scale—and if you were to calculate the social return for the invention of that technology or technique, it’s almost infinit...

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