By Jeff Connaughton, the chief of staff to Senator Ted Kaufman during the financial reform fight in 2009-2010 and author of the book The Payoff: Why Wall Street Always Wins. He’s now retired from politics and lives in Savannah, Georgia.
This is fundraising week for Naked Capitalism. You’ll see below why I’m here to help. If you planned to give and haven’t gotten to it yet, please do so here, right now.
I started reading Naked Capitalism right after the financial crisis, and I continue to read it every day.
During 2009-10, when I was chief of staff to then Senator Ted Kaufman (D-DE), I was struck by how little information and analysis government bodies were producing about the causes and needed solutions to the financial crisis. In the summer of 2009, a White House working group produced its white paper, which included some good things but mainly proposed what amounted to a reshuffling of the regulatory deck; at the same time, the Senate Banking Committee stayed mostly quiet throughout 2009 as most senators stayed focused on healthcare reform and other issues. Even well into the spring of 2010, it was like Waiting for Godot. Finally, Ted Kaufman couldn’t wait any longer, so he started going to the Senate floor to make blistering speeches about the failures on Wall Street and in regulatory and law enforcement agencies.
No one told us what to think. We actually had to figure that out on our own! It’s no laughing matter to say that as I look back on my 23 years in Washington (12 of which were as a corporate lobbyist), those months in the winter and sSpring of 2010 were truly a rarity in that way. As I said last year in a speech at the invitation of Larry Lessig at the Harvard Safra School of Ethics:
When you’re on K Street, you feel like your part of an army, with a navy, air force, marines and CIA to help you. From K Street, you have almost complete transparency into the bill drafting process. And I was often in the loop with the person writing the legislation, or reacting to drafts.
In contrast, when you’re a reformer in Congress, you feel almost alone – until eventually and when it’s too late you team up with a small band of brothers and sisters for a fight in which the public interest is completely outgunned.
That was when NC and other independent sources of information and analysis proved invaluable to me and other reformers in the policy apparatus. NC consistently has stayed far ahead of the curve and often has proved the first to be correct when hindsight and a broadening consensus eventually help others to find the courage to agree.
For years, every day, NC has been a fierce, independent voice that has helped lay the foundations for and illuminate countless financial and economic policy debates. I’ve already given a big donation to support Naked Capitalism. If you are a regular reader and have the wherewithal to do so, please dig deep now and make your contribution here.
The financial crisis was a shattering experience for tens of millions of Americans. Yet so far one major political party has played virtually no role in helping to formulate policy answers to the many questions the crisis raised about a rotted legal and regulatory system. While the Democratic Party — as the party primarily in power for the past seven years — has been riven by whether President Obama, the Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission, regulators and Congress have done close to enough in response. We’ll soon hear even more definitive answers on these issues from Bernie Sanders, Martin O’Malley, Hillary Clinton and other Democratic presidential candidates. We may not hear much on point from the Republican presidential contenders, but perhaps we will.
I’ve never stopped reading NC, every day. It’s one of the proverbial pebbles dropped into the water, and now its ripples are making their way to Iowa, the first caucus state, and New Hampshire and other early primary states. If you can’t afford much, please give what you can, here. If you can afford more, give more. If you can give a lot, give a lot. You are investing in creating a different debate, a different society, and a different culture I fervently hope those ripples will become a powerful wave of voters who demand genuine change.
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I just bought an airplane ticket with my credit card and it went just fine. Then I tried to donate $100 with the same card and get this response, “The card you entered cannot be used for this payment. Please enter a different credit or debit card number.” And, by the way, that message is coming from paypal. Weird.
If you have more than one PayPal account, PayPal won’t let you use the card you have used on one account on a second account. Their assumption is that it si fraud, as opposed to that you have more than one account (or cynically, they are doing everything they can to impede use of anything other than PayPal payment services and credit cards).
Sorry for the hassle. You can always send a check. And we really appreciate your support!
I have no PayPal account. Are they trying to induct me to PayPal?
I don’t have a Pay Pal account, either, so I just used the Pay Pal system to pay with my credit card. I was prompted to set up a Pay Pay account, but I declined.
Waiting for payday to roll around, hoping the fundraiser lasts into the week, when is the last day of the fundraiser?
I think the Tip Jar is available 365.2425 days per year, so you can still donate even if you miss the end of the official fundraising period.
It’s always a pleasure to see you in my in-box and to read your intelligent and important offerings. Right now, being on the low end of the Socioeconomic scale, my ability to offer $$ is limited, yet I wish to “feed that which feeds me”, so I’m checking for change! Thank you so much for your work and especially for sharing it with those of us who appreciate it and am challenged to higher understanding!
Mr. Connaughton, thank you for your support of Naked Capitalism, and for sharing your experience and insights.
I have to call you on this, though: “We’ll soon hear even more definitive answers on these issues from Bernie Sanders, Martin O’Malley, Hillary Clinton and other Democratic presidential candidates.”
I sincerely doubt it. Maybe from Bernie, but what does it matter? The Democrat Party will never allow him the nomination, and he has already acquiesced to Hillary with his promise not to launch a 3rd party bid. We might try listening to Green Party candidate Jill Stein: http://www.jill2016.com/
My ancient and empty PayPal account worked very smoothly to pass along a donation from my credit card. As it does when I make international purchases. Using it that way leaves PayPal as the only entity in a transaction that knows my card info, and saves the hassle of filling it in afresh at any of the less-secure places I might buy something from. Yes, I heard bad things about PayPal many years ago, and I’m sure I have no secrets from spooks who might be silly enough to think that I’m worth their attention. Short of dropping out of the digital community I don’t see many *lesser* evils, and my own experience has been okay. Far better to contribute to NC than to play digital purist, imo, and writing and sending a paper check is *such* a hassle! I don’t even get back an autographed copy of the check anymore, and one electronic record isn’t any more solid than another, afaik.
Check is in the mail $200. with deepest appreciation and wishes
for every goodness for you and your people.
While the Democratic Party — as the party primarily in power for the past seven years — has been riven by whether President Obama, the Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission, regulators and Congress have done close to enough in response
Sorry, but the Democrats — save maybe Sanders and Warren — have been equally part of the problem as Republicans.
Obama always has been, and still is, totally in bed with Wall Street.