What Congress Did Not Want You to Read: Robert Johnson’s Testimony on OTC Derivative Market
by ilene - November 8th, 2009 1:56 am
This is a follow up to Robert Johnson’s testimony expunged from Congressional records by Edward Harrison at Credit Writedowns- Ilene
What Congress Did Not Want You to Read: Robert Johnson’s Testimony on OTC Derivative Market
Courtesy of Lynn Parramore at New Deal 2.0.
*Due to continued interest the Johnson testimony, I have reposted the following:
Robert Johnson, Director of Financial Reform for the Roosevelt Institute, submitted his testimony in early October to the Committee on Financial Services as part of the hearing on reform of the over-the-counter derivatives market. Johnson’s hard-hitting analysis of the potentially catastrophic faults in our financial system runs counter to a troubling trend of failing to address risk that has plagued the Committee’s.
Johnson has grave concerns about loophole-riddled bill currently under review, describing it to me in a recent conversation as “Swiss Cheese.” In his view, regulation of the “reckless” OTC derivatives market is crucial as its impact is so broad, forming “the very fabric of our financial system.”
Are bold voices like Johnson’s going to be being silenced? His original in-person testimony before the Committee was shut down after an outrageous five minutes by Melissa Bean, while industry players spoke at length. Johnson was forced to submit his full testimony in written form, but my attempts to have it published on the House website were met with a number of implausible excuses by staffers. Ken Silverstein reported the story of what appears to be deliberate suppression on the Harper’s Magazine website.
Click here to read full text: Rob Johnson Testimony.
And please send the link to as many people as possible so that Johnson’s voice can be heard!
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Robert Johnson’s testimony expunged from Congressional records
by ilene - October 29th, 2009 6:02 pm
Robert Johnson’s testimony expunged from Congressional records
Courtesy of Edward Harrison at Credit Writedowns
Robert Johnson, a finance expert and former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, has been extremely critical of the US Government’s handling of matters related to financial services.
This past October 7, he gave testimony at the House of Representatives financial Services Committee expressing some of his concerns. Not only was his testimony cut short, but his prepared remarks failed to be entered into record (hat tip reader Tom). This is outrageous and a deliberate attempt to expunged his testimony from record. Read the excerpt from Harper’s below (emphasis added):
Predictably, witnesses at the hearing trotted out positions urging caution in regard to the matter of reform…
Johnson, who came last, offered the only serious critical viewpoint, saying that the American public had been “quite demoralized by…the bailouts that we experienced last fall.” After about five minutes of his testimony, Congresswoman Melissa Bean—another industry-funded committee member who chaired the hearing because [Barney] Frank was absent—had heard enough. “I’m just going to ask you to wrap up because we’re running out of time,” she told Johnson.
Johnson gamely continued. “When I hear the testimony today that are largely financial institutions and end users, I believe that I represent a third group that comes to the table, which is the taxpayers, the working people of the United States,” he said.
“I do need a final comment,” Bean interjected seconds later.
That put an end to Johnson’s testimony. “I was just called to this hearing last night, so I will provide detailed comments on your bill and a statement for the record that will finish my comments,” he concluded.
About five days later Johnson submitted his full testimony to the committee, to be included on its website along with the statements of the other eight panelists. When it wasn’t posted, Johnson asked Lynn Parramore, editor of the Roosevelt Institute’s blog, to see what was up…
Finally, she was informed that the committee’s general counsel would not allow posting of the testimony because Johnson had not submitted it during the hearing. (Of course, since Johnson had been invited at the last minute it was impossible for him to fulfill this pointless requirement.) So you still can’t read Johnson’s prepared testimony at the committee website, but you can
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW.