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Carbon Bubble ·

Beyond Divestment

Two years ago, students at Swarthmore College began a fossil fuel divestment campaign, initially focused on coal. Last November, 350.org, the grassroots activist NGO dedicated to reducing carbon in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million joined the fight with a nationwide “Do the Math” campus tour. The movement spread to cities, and soon to

John Fullerton·
March 28, 2013 5:13 pm·
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Carbon Bubble ·

Why I Marched Against the XL Pipeline

My daughter and I joined an estimated 50,000 demonstrators in Washington, D.C. marching against the XL Pipeline that would connect the Canadian Tar Sands to American refineries. After a half century on this planet, I took to the streets. Here’s why. The “business as usual” arguments in favor of building the pipeline as articulated by the liberal and

John Fullerton·
February 19, 2013 10:30 pm·
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Derivatives ·

What JPMorgan’s Recently Released Internal Reports Unintentionally Say

After apologizing at Davos – but only to his shareholders – according to William Cohan on the Bloomberg View, the JPMorgan Chairman and CEO hastened to add about 2012, “We did have record profits. Life goes on.” It is true; JPMorgan reported a strong financial performance in 2012, “London Whale” trading fiasco notwithstanding. I must admit that despite my 18

John Fullerton·
February 4, 2013 2:11 pm·
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Capitalism ·

Of Guns, Whales, Freedom, and Justice

After visiting an awe-inspiring women’s empowerment program at work in several rural villages north of Delhi, our host at the Ashram, scanning his Blackberry, related the news: a horrific shooting…assault rifle…children slaughtered…in a school…in Connecticut (my son’s school is in the state)…and then after what seemed like an endless pause as I

John Fullerton·
January 14, 2013 7:36 pm·
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Biomimicry ·

Will Sandy Trigger Our Great Transformation?

We are now a couple of weeks into the aftermath of Super Storm Sandy, and no one has yet improved upon the analysis of Bloomberg Businessweek’s November 1 cover story: “It’s Global Warming, STUPID.” In 1944, the famous political economist Karl Polanyi explained the root

John Fullerton·
November 26, 2012 9:49 am·
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Capitalism ·

Reimagining Capitalism in Post Sandy America

No scientist will tell you with certainty whether doping was the reason Lance Armstrong won any particular leg of his seven Tour de France titles. You know where I’m headed with this reasoning. Bloomberg Businessweek put it rather succinctly on this week’s cover: “It’s Global Warming, STUPID.” For the first time since 1984, not one challenge

John Fullerton·
November 6, 2012 4:54 pm·
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Climate Change ·

Inextricably Linked to Int’l Relations. So Why Isn’t Climate Change Being Debated Tonight?

With the third and final debate scheduled for this evening, we undoubtedly will witness the first presidential debate in the United States of America since 1984 in which Climate Change is not part of the national debate, according to Brad Johnson in his post

John Fullerton·
October 22, 2012 4:32 pm·
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Financial Reform ·

Of Ina and Ahab

In her New York Times Magazine cover story on the fall of the well-regarded Ina Drew titled “Swallowed by the London Whale,” Susan Dominus ends the article quoting Drew’s former colleague who recently lamented with Drew: “You know, Ina, sometimes I think I’d give my right arm to return to those (good ol’) days at Chemical (Bank), you know?

John Fullerton·
October 10, 2012 8:47 am·
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Climate Change ·

The Case for Spending Down a Charitable Foundation

“Have things become so critical – both in terms of the scale of the challenges we face but also the possibility of change – that this radical step [of spending down our assets over the next ten to fifteen years] is a good move?” This is the question recently put to the advisor of a foundation deeply concerned about the…

John Fullerton·
September 18, 2012 2:53 pm·
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Future of Finance ·

While Rome (and the Western US) Burns…

It’s officially election season, and (surprise) we’re off to a terrific start. There are plenty of very real short and medium term issues for the candidates to mold their ideologies around. Most notably, like much of the so-called “developed world,” the US has a jobs crisis, both in quantity and quality, that challenges modern capitalism for answers it does not…

John Fullerton·
September 4, 2012 5:55 pm·
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Financial Transactions Tax ·

Good Knight HFT

The futile debate between market fundamentalists and those who claim you can’t stop “progress” on the one hand, and proponents of tighter government regulation and oversight on the other continues on with no resolution in sight. From too-big-to-fail banks, a second front is now opening, this one focused on the structure and regulation of equity trading in the United States.

John Fullerton·
August 13, 2012 10:18 am·
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Ecological Footprint ·

Financial Overshoot

Last week, I gave a talk to the Missouri Association of Public Employee Retirement Systems annual meeting. This was the first time I presented my developing thesis of financial overshoot, which arithmetically accompanies ecological overshoot unless we manage to

John Fullerton·
July 23, 2012 5:46 pm·
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Future of Finance ·

Off-Grid Financing

The ramifications of the Libor scandal—what Warren Buffett glibly called a can of worms that affects the whole world—grow by the day. Criminal indictments of individuals, even if firms are too big to indict, appear to be in the making as the tsunami’s shock waves are about to spread to many of the usual suspects. One can

John Fullerton·
July 16, 2012 3:48 pm·
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Future of Finance ·

Will Barclays’ CEO Surprise Us?

Like Lloyd Blankfein with the Abacus fiasco, and Jamie Dimon with “the whale trade,” Barclays CEO Bob Diamond has an unparalleled opportunity to surprise us this week during his appearance before Parliament to explain the most recent financial scandal involving the systematic manipulation of LIBOR, the benchmark interbank lending rate upon which hundreds of trillions of dollars

John Fullerton·
July 2, 2012 5:48 pm·
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Financial Reform ·

Is Jamie Dimon’s Business First Class?

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon will today, once again, stand before the authors of Dodd-Frank and attempt to make the case for why a $2 billion trading loss was a stupid mistake, not a willful breach of at least the intent of the law. Our representatives who wrote the law should hold him to the standards set by JPMorgan’s own Code…

John Fullerton·
June 18, 2012 6:47 pm·
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