ends of the policy extreme: government intervention in the financial market or a wholly market-driven financial system. This is indeed the contrast between socialism in full flower and capitalism red in tooth and claw. John Kenneth Galbraith once observed, “Where the market works, I'm for that. Where the government is necessary, I'm for that.”50 This is insightful, but of course also facile – it's not hard to be for working markets and an effective government; it's hard to know which is which.
The rest of this book is an effort to determine when markets work well for equality-enhancing finance and when the government needs to step in with monetary policy, regulation, and even government-backed programs such as new “Equality Banks” that provide vital financial services when the private market falls short.
Notes
1 * Sabrina Tavernise, “With His Job Gone, an Autoworker Wonders, ‘What Am I as a Man?’” New York Times, May 27, 2019, available at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/27/us/auto-worker-jobs-lost.html.
2 1. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Chair Jelena McWilliams, “Remarks to the Institute of International Finance (IFF)-Bank Policy Institute (BPI) Cross Border Resolution & Regulation Colloquium” (speech, London, July 1, 2019), available at https://www.fdic.gov/news/news/speeches/spjul0119.html.
3 2. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (FRB) Chair Jerome H. Powell, “Opening Remarks” (speech, Kansas City, MO, October 9, 2019), available at https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/powell20191009a.htm.
4 3. Carlotta Balestra and Richard Tonkin, “Inequalities in household wealth across OECD countries: Evidence from the OECD Wealth Distribution Database,” Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Working Paper No. 88, 14–15 (June 20, 2018), available at http://www.oecd.org/officialdocuments/publicdisplaydocumentpdf/?cote=SDD/DOC(2018)1&docLanguage=En.
5 4. James Mackintosh, “Why Mr. Market Ignores a World in Turmoil,” Wall Street Journal, June 4, 2020, available at https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-mr-market-ignores-a-world-in-turmoil-11591272919.
6 5. Tyler Clifford, “Jim Cramer: The pandemic led to ‘one of the greatest wealth transfers in history,’” CNBC, June 4, 2020, available at https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/04/cramer-the-pandemic-led-to-a-great-wealth-transfer.html.
7 6. FRB Gov. Lael Brainard, “Is the Middle Class within Reach for Middle-Income Families?” (speech, Washington, DC, May 10, 2019), FRB, available at https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/brainard20190510a.htm.
8 7. FRB Chair Jerome H. Powell, “Welcoming Remarks” (speech, Washington, DC, May 9, 2019), FRB, available at https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/powell20190509a.htm.
9 8. Binyamin Appelbaum, “Janet Yellen Gives an Economic Short Course, Beyond Interest Rates,” New York Times, January 12, 2017, available at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/business/janet-yellen-interest-rates.html.
10 9. Heather Long and Andrew Van Dam, “The black-white economic divide is as wide as it was in 1968,” Washington Post, June 4, 2020, available at https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/06/04/economic-divide-black-households/.
11 10. Bruce Springsteen, “Glory Days,” April 3, 1982, track #10 on Born in the U.S.A., Columbia, June 4, 1984, studio album.
12 11. Vice President George H.W. Bush, “Address Accepting the Presidential Nomination at the Republican National Convention in New Orleans” (speech, New Orleans, August 18, 1988), available at https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-accepting-the-presidential-nomination-the-republican-national-convention-new.
13 12. David McCullough, Truman (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), 663.
14 13. Ali Alichi, Rodrigo Mariscal, and Daniela Muhaj, “Hollowing Out: The Channels of Income Polarization in the United States,” IMF Working Paper WP/17/244 (November, 2017), available at https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2017/11/15/Hollowing-Out-The-Channels-of-Income-Polarization-in-the-United-States-45375.
15 14. Chuck Collins and Josh Hoxie, “Billionaire Bonanza 2018: Inherited Wealth Dynasties of the United States,” Institute for Policy Studies 3 (October 30, 2018), available at https://ips-dc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Billionaire-Bonanza-2018-Report-October-2018-1.pdf.
16 15. FRB, “Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2019, Featuring Supplemental Data from April 2020,” 25 (May 14, 2020), available at https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/2019-report-economic-well-being-us-households-202005.pdf.
17 16. FRB, “2016 Survey of Consumer Finances Chartbook,” 7 (October 16, 2017), available at https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/files/BulletinCharts.pdf.
18 17. Emmanuel Saez, “Striking It Richer: The Evolution of Top Incomes in the United States” (updated March 2, 2019), available at https://eml.berkeley.edu/∼saez/saez-UStopincomes-2017.pdf.
