Republic, Lost_ How Money Corrupts Congress--And a Plan to Stop It - Lawrence Lessig [170]
40. Hacker and Pierson, Winner-Take-All Politics, 1.
41. Krugman, “Zombie Financial Ideas”; Martin Wolf of the Financial Times has described it similarly. See Hacker and Pierson, Winner-Take-All Politics, 67.
42. Luigi Zingales, “A Market-Based Regulatory Policy to Avoid Financial Crisis,” Cato Journal 30, no. 3 (Fall 2010): 535
43. Luigi Zingales has another method not tied to controlling the size of banks. See ibid., 536.
44. Sebastian Mallaby has argued—powerfully, in my view—that these criticisms of Wall Street banks don’t extend to hedge funds. That’s not because hedge funds are populated with “saints,” as Mallaby puts it, but because their “incentives and culture are ultimately less flawed than those of other financial companies.” Sebastian Mallaby, More Money Than God (New York: Penguin Press, 2010), 375. I agree with this. The problem the past ten years has revealed is not innovation. It is innovation deployed in a context in which the risks are not borne by the gamblers. Hedge funds are not that.
45. Johnson and Kwak, 13 Bankers, 214–15.
46. Roger Lowenstein, The End of Wall Street (New York: Penguin Press, 2010), 291.
47. Tyler Cowen, “The Inequality That Matters,” The American Interest (Jan.–Feb. 2011), 6, available at link #150.
48. Hacker and Pierson, Winner-Take-All Politics, 282.
49. Mallaby, More Money Than God, 378.
50. MapLight, H.R. 4173: Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, available at link #151; MapLight, S. 3217: Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010, available at link #152; Center for Responsive Politics, OpenSecrets.org, Commercial Banks, available at link #153; Center for Responsive Politics, OpenSecrets.org, Finance/Credit Companies, available at link #154; Center for Responsive Politics, OpenSecrets.org, Securities and Investment Companies, available at link #155; Center for Responsive Politics, OpenSecrets.org, Savings and Loan Institutions, available at link #156; Center for Responsive Politics, OpenSecrets.org, Credit Unions, available at link #157.
51. Hacker and Pierson, Winner-Take-All Politics, 66.
52. Center for Responsive Politics, OpenSecrets.org, Pro-Environment Groups Outmatched, Outspent in Battle over Climate Change Legislation, available at link #58.
53. The heart of the bill was a mandate that major sources of carbon emissions obtain a pollution permit for each ton of carbon dioxide or its equivalent that they emit. Sponsors emphasize that it required “electric utilities to meet 20% of their electricity demand through renewable energy sources and energy efficiency by 2020.” The bill included new spending on “clean energy technologies and energy efficiency, including energy efficiency and renewable energy ($90 billion in new investments by 2025), carbon capture and sequestration ($60 billion), electric and other advanced technology vehicles ($20 billion), and basic scientific research and development ($20 billion).” It also established new energy-saving standards for new buildings and appliances. “American Clean Energy and Security Act,” Wikipedia, available at link #158.
54. Center for Responsive Politics, OpenSecrets.org, Lobbying Database, available at link #159.
55. Ryan Lizza, “As the World Burns: How the Senate and the White House Missed Their Best Chance to Deal with Climate Change,” The New Yorker, Oct. 11, 2010, 12.
56. Robert Reich, “Everyday Corruption,” The American Prospect (June 21, 2010), 8, available at link #160.
57. Speech of Barack Obama, Philadelphia, Pa., April 2, 2008.
Chapter 12. How So Damn Much Money Defeats the Right
1. Loren Collins, “The Truth About Tytler,” available at link #161. Something like this was certainly a concern among our Framers. John Adams, for example, feared that if democratic equality were taken too far, “debts would be abolished first; taxes laid heavy on the rich, and