Journalist Robert Kuttner: Joe Biden Risks Going Soft On Wall Street

Tim Geithner, Larry Summers, Jared Bernstein — From left to right: Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, National Economic Council Director Larry Summers, and Jared Bernstein, economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden; listen as President Barack Obama meets with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, June 29, 2010.

Aidan Connelly is a production assistant on Boston Public Radio. A graduate of Emerson College with a B.A in journalism, his work has appeared on WBUR, KCRW, and The Marketplace Morning Report.

August 18, 2020

Updated August 07, 2023

On Tuesday, journalist Robert Kuttner joined Boston Public Radio to discuss his concerns about continued leniency of financial sector regulations should presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden win in November. The discussion stemmed from a recent article by Kuttner, " Falling Upward: The Surprising Survival of Larry Summers,” about the legacy of the former treasury secretary and current economic advisor to Biden.

“Beginning with Clinton and continuing with Obama — even after the financial collapse — we’ve had a Wall Street business model based on trading, and hyper-financialization, and opacity,” he said, "where all the gains go to the insiders. ... And the government really [gave] up on the idea that was alive through the 1970s, that we have to regulate these clowns."

Robert Kuttner is a co-editor for the American Prospect, and the Ida and Meyer Kirstein Chair at Brandeis University. His latest book is “ The Stakes: 2020 and the Survival of American Democracy."

Aidan Connelly is a production assistant on Boston Public Radio. A graduate of Emerson College with a B.A in journalism, his work has appeared on WBUR, KCRW, and The Marketplace Morning Report.