November 17 – The Revolving Door From Treasury Secretary to Wall Street; The TPP and TAFTA in Trouble; Political Considerations Overwhelming Technical Needs

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the latest high-level official’s passage through the revolving door as the former Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner trades in public service for private gain joining the Wall Street private equity giant Warburg Pincus. William K. Black, the former litigation director of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board and author of “The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One” joins us to discuss the unsurprising move from the public to the private sector by the man who made sure that Wall Street was made whole with taxpayer money after they almost destroyed the economy.

Part 2

Then we examine the fate of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement and the Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA) that is stalled because of European outrage over NSA spying, much of which has been directed at the European partners in the agreement to find out what their negotiating positions are. The former counselor to the Secretary of Commerce Clyde Prestowitz, joins us to discuss pushback in Congress and from the Europeans as well as his recent article at Foreign Policy “The Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Decline of American Hegemony”.

Part 3

Then finally we discuss the uncertain fate of the Affordable Care Act following a vote in the House of 261 to 157 to gut Obamacare that passed with the help of 39 Democratic lawmakers. Dr. Susan Wood, a Professor of Health Policy and the Executive Director of the Jacobs Institute of Women’s Health at George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, joins us to discuss how political considerations overwhelmed technical needs in the launching of healthcare.gov and what can be done to put Obamacare back on the rails.