By Rachel Goldfarb, originally published on Next New Deal
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Interview: Gary Gensler Explains How Financial Reform is Going (WaPo)
Roosevelt Institute Fellow Mike Konczal speaks to Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairman Gary Gensler about the launch of "swap execution facility" platforms, which bring transparency and regulation to previously unregulated derivative swaps.
This Week in Poverty: The Immokalee Way (The Nation)
Greg Kaufmann profiles the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, which received the Freedom from Want medal at the Roosevelt Institute's Four Freedoms Awards last week. His history of the CIW's work over the past twenty years focuses on dignity for workers.
- Roosevelt Take: Watch the CIW receive their award, along with Ameena Matthews, Sister Simone Campbell, Paul Krugman, and Wendell Berry, here.
Redefining the Next Policy Debate (NYT)
Jared Bernstein thinks that if the coming budget debate focuses only on fiscal policy, then the right wins. Other important issues that Congress could take up - unemployment, wage stagnation, infrastructure - would do far more for the economy than eliminating the deficit.
Shutdown Means ‘Lost Ground’ for Disabled Veterans Benefits (MSNBC)
Ned Resnikoff reports that just as Veterans Affairs was starting to catch up on its backlog of disability applications, the shutdown set things back. The GOP certainly didn't gain anything in the shutdown fight; harming disabled veterans was probably not the goal.
The Greatest Risk to the U.S. Economy Is Still the People in Charge of It (The Atlantic)
Derek Thompson considers how to understand the vast amounts of money that budget showdowns have cost the economy since 2010. According to a Macroeconomic Advisors report, Congress has caused the loss of a year's worth of new jobs.
JPMorgan Chase Will Probably Give the Federal Government $13 Billion (NY Mag)
Caroline Bankoff reports on a tentative deal between JPMorgan Chase and the Justice Department to settle an investigation into bad mortgage securities. The deal will still allow the Justice Department to pursue criminal charges against individuals.