Category Archives: In the News

In The News: Bill to Seize Failed Bank CEOs’ Pay Draws Bipartisan Senate Support (The Washington Post)

“There is now bipartisan momentum to pass legislation to hold executives more accountable when Wall Street takes outsized risks that pay off for executives but not the rest of us,” Natalia Renta, senior policy counsel at Americans for Financial Reform, said in an email. “It is a welcome change that some Republicans are finally joining forces with Democrats to advance an important aspect of financial reform.”

In The News: New report about private equity in home health raises red flag, authors say (McKnight’s Home Care)

A new report reveals that the top five private equity firms collected over $850 million in Medicare revenue and operated almost 280 locations in 2020. These findings should sound an alarm bell for antitrust regulators, according to the report’s authors, Diana L. Moss, president of the American Antitrust Institute, and Oscar Valdes Viera, research manager for Americans for Financial Reform. They spoke to McKnight’s Home Care in a Newsmakers podcast.

In The News: American exceptionalism on climate risk amplifies financial instability (Green Central Banking)

“… it’s called climate change because the climate is changing, and much faster than scientists originally anticipated. We cannot merely use past data to predict future climate impacts,” wrote Alex Martin, senior policy analyst at AFR. “We must take a precautionary approach and heed the stern warnings from scientists about our dire current global trajectory. The US will not be spared the effects.”

In the News: A New Vision for a Just Financial System (The Washington Monthly)

“Blaming deposit insurance itself, however much the rescue of SVB depositors sticks in the craw, would be precisely the wrong reaction to this year’s crisis. The true injustice of the moment lies not in extending deposit insurance but in the paucity of obligations that bankers face in return,” AFR’s Communication Director, Carter Dougherty wrote.

In The News: Fed faults Silicon Valley Bank execs, itself in bank failure (AP)

Alexa Philo, a former bank examiner for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and senior policy analyst at Americans for Financial Reform, said the Fed could adopt stricter rules on its own, without relying on Congress. “It is long past time to roll back the dangerous deregulation under the last administration to the greatest extent possible, and pay close attention to the largest banks so this crisis does not worsen,” she said.

In the News: Child care costs rising with more private equity firm investments (Scripps News)

“Increasingly, in the past — especially after the pandemic — we’ve seen this big surge in parents who are interested in providing other activities for their kids that they weren’t able to previously do. And so, as a result of that, we’ve seen much more money from the private equity industry go into childcare,” said Andrew Park, senior policy analyst at Americans for Financial Reform.