Capital Institute Blog

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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…
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  • Future of Finance ·

Freedom in the Anthropocene

Much needs to change in the Anthropocene, including our willingness to have constraints placed on our precious right to individual freedom.  This is particularly challenging for Americans whose country was founded on an Enlightenment-inspired understanding of freedom, uninformed by the advances of modern
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  • Future of Finance ·

Real Prosperity Starts Here

I spent two days last week in Grand Rapids, Michigan at the “Real Prosperity Starts Here” conference organized by the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE).  Even though I was only able to attend for a short time, I left re-energized and excited by all I saw and engaged in.  The annual BALLE conference, which has for 10 years…
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  • Future of Finance ·

10 Questions JPMorgan’s Board of Directors Should be Asking

Much has been written about the trading—not hedging—debacle at JPMorgan. Jamie Dimon’s mea culpa is intended to head off deeper questions. No cover-up on his watch—get out in front, be direct, deal with it, move on. Right? Not so fast. JPMorgan’s board has a responsibility to probe more thoughtfully into the uncomfortable truth about
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  • Financial Reform ·

Is There a Case for Public Banking in America?

Last week I participated in the inaugural Public Banking Institute conference in Philadelphia – not a coincidence, freedom from the tyranny of the banks underscored the program. When I first learned of this idea of state-owned banks as a solution to our economic challenges, I was a real skeptic. Just what we need, our government
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  • Future of Finance ·

Beyond Firm-Level Sustainable Capitalism

Co-authored by Peter Malik, Director of Center for Market Innovation at the NRDC Generation Investment Management’s recently released white paper calls for a “paradigm shift” to Sustainable Capitalism. It is an admirable and important contribution to the discussion
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  • Future of Finance ·

Ending the Debate on Keystone

In his February 10th essay, New York Times columnist Joe Nocera asked a simple question: “Can a person support the Keystone XL oil pipeline and still believe that global warming poses a serious threat?” Joe answers “yes,” with
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  • Future of Finance ·

Finance for Sustainability: The Future of Business Education

I was honored to join Majora Carter, Eban Goodstein, and Elysa Hammond at the launch of Bard College’s new MBA in Sustainability last week to discuss how finance has been a major factor driving our ecological and social crises and how fixing finance must be a part of the solution.  The ideas I presented – an all hands on deck,…
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  • Financial Reform ·

A Systems Approach to Financial Reform

I spoke last Thursday at the Congressional Progressive Caucus Policy Summit in Baltimore on how our work at Capital Institute might have relevance to the 2012 Congress’s financial reform agenda. These are the hopes I shared for how policy could shape the Future of Finance: “Good Afternoon, and thank you for offering me the opportunity to address you
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  • Future of Finance ·

What’s Wrong With the Debt Debate

This former banker, and now sustainability investor and humble blogger, will not offer grand predictions for 2012.  Forecasting in a world of rising uncertainty suggests a lack of understanding about uncertainty.  Instead, inspired by my holiday reading, Debt: The First 5000 Years, by anthropologist