The Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) held a conference in Washington D.C. May 5, 2015 that lasted 2 days.  INET is a nonprofit think tank that was started with a 50 million dollar funding from it's founder, George Soros, in October 2009.  The organization is located in New York City. Robert Johnson is the current President of the organization.  It took 2 years to put this conference together and featured women speakers, though it was not about women in finance but about Finance and Society. Normally a conference on finance like this is dominated by men.

For years media has covered and interviewed many from think tanks that are supported by right leaning political activist. Little attention has been given to progressive groups so I was not aware this group, There was a need for new economic thinking after the 2008 financial crisis. Soros got together with others that was willing to support a institution dedicated to new ideas in economics and to nurture young people in the field of economics.  The unique thing about this group is it in not about political spin and ideology but a serious look at what is needed to make our economy work for everyone. It also focus on the international economy also because when our banks was in crises, it spread to other countries.

The key note speaker was Senator Elizabeth Warren but there were other notable women who spoke.  Fed Chair Janet Yellen, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde, and Brooksley Born just to name a few.

I spent hours listening to all the videos that was posted from this conference on the internet.  I came away with the understanding that our financial system was not only broken and over grown but was not sustainable. It no longer served to redistribute money into society through investments but focused on growing profits for bank investors. CEO's no longer could tell you about the activities or what was on the books in their banks that was now to large to manage. They had grown also too powerful for the government to effectively regulate. A theme that kept being talked about was the financial industry was causing harm to society in their pursuit  of profit. 

I will start with Sen Warren's speech and she is introduced by Robert Johnson.

If you are interested to watch Fed Chair Yellen and IMF Director Lagarde give their talks and interview each other.  The IMF Director is very interesting and informative as to what is needed to be done.  Here is the link to that video. It is over an hour long.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOLHSY59zpo 

I found this forum extremely interesting and watched it twice.  There was many ideas and information coming from Beneficial Community State Bank in California, Co CEO Kat Taylor.  This bank serves low income and small business. She talks about how FICA scores don't really predict payments. That the abusive high interest rates of sub prime lending plays a bigger role in poor pay backs. The car loan industry was carved out of Dodd Frank.  There are now large segments of our society that is under served and banks like these will have to be part of the future if we are going to repair our economy. 

I know some of you may not think this is something to look forward to but in my community we would welcome it.  

If you are interested in more of this conference you can find other videos at you tube.  Just search using INET Finance and Society.

I will stop here and pick up with Roosevelt Institute's paper next time that should answer how the Democrats will make changes.