Sarah Bloom Raskin, the CEO of Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM) and Executive Vice President at The Walt Disney Company is stepping down. What will be her legacy in sports tech?
Sarah Bloom Raskin is a well-known feminist, author, and activist. However, she has been criticized for not being able to answer the questions that are asked of her.
On September 19, 2021, Sarah Bloom Raskin talks at the CNBC Institutional Investor Delivering Alpha conference in New York.
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The American economy is in a vulnerable position right now. Inflation is reaching generational highs, and the stock market is on the verge of its worst drop since March 2020. The Federal Reserve is treading a fine line in its response: increase interest rates too little, and inflation worsens; raise interest rates too much, and the economy collapses. President Biden, on the other hand, is cutting the rope as central bankers strive to keep their equilibrium.
Sarah Bloom Raskin, a former Obama financial regulator, was nominated by the president last month to be the Fed’s next vice chairman for supervision. The purpose of the Federal Reserve, as defined by Congress, is strictly nonpolitical. The Fed’s leaders must put politics and personal preferences aside in order to conduct sound monetary policy. But, based on her previous public views, Ms. Raskin would have a difficult time doing so.
Ms. Raskin’s vendetta against US energy producers has been a defining feature of her career, and one that she is likely to carry over to the Fed. She proposed using the Fed’s stress tests to punish banks that service fossil-fuel businesses last summer. She’s also pushed the Federal Reserve to utilize its risk-based capital criteria to shift funds away from oil and gas companies and into “sustainable projects.” She’s even suggested that the Fed could de-bank energy corporations by imposing portfolio or concentration limitations on “high-emission assets” for banks.
Why do people despise oil and natural gas so much? Because, in Ms. Raskin’s perspective, it is a “dying” business that offers economic dangers due to climate change. Never mind that there is presently no renewable energy that could replace oil and natural gas, which account for 70% of the country’s energy, therefore penalizing investment in them would merely increase the already high cost of living in the United States. Never mind that oil and gas corporations in the United States provide roughly 8% of the country’s GDP and employ more than 10 million people, many of whom are blue-collar employees. Never mind that oil and gas corporations are a major source of green-energy innovation, generating one of the greatest quantities and quality of green patents of any business on the planet.
Ms. Raskin has been nominated for a position at the Federal Reserve as a vice chairman, not as the head of an environmental, social, or governance fund. The Fed’s sole requirements are price stability and low unemployment. That’s why it has so much autonomy and power—not it’s designed to be political. It is up to elected representatives in Congress, not isolated bureaucrats, to decide whether the government should set limitations on fossil fuels.
Ms. Raskin has made it apparent that she intends to use her position to restructure our financial system in ways that Congress never intended. Her active style is undemocratic and unfit for someone in such a powerful position. The central bank’s loan choices are mostly made by the vice chairman for supervision. Ms. Raskin is virtually likely to use her position to penalize sectors she considers unfriendly by withholding money.
In this aspect, Ms. Raskin’s confirmation would be detrimental not just to the US economy as a whole, but also to the Federal Reserve’s image. That’s why 41 industry trade groups signed a letter opposing her nomination on Friday. Not only is a single candidacy at stake, but the Fed’s whole independence. If Ms. Raskin’s nomination is approved, and she is permitted to utilize the Fed’s levers of monetary policy to further her personal activism, the Fed—one of the few remaining unpoliticized institutions in American life—will have become yet another political weapon, distrusted by voters.
This is the very last thing that the economy needs. Mr. Biden said that he is committed to reducing inflation and energy costs. However, hiring a financial regulator intent on crippling the oil and gas business would only exacerbate the situation for ordinary Americans, who are already paying 40% more at the pump today than they were a year ago.
If the president really wants to help Americans, he should withdraw Ms. Raskin’s nomination. If he fails to do so, the Senate must vote against her confirmation in the interests of the American people.
Mr. Stewart is the president of the United States Oil and Gas Association and was formerly the head of staff of the House Natural Resources Committee. Ms. Sgamma is the head of the Western Energy Alliance, a trade association that represents oil and gas companies in the Rocky Mountain West.
Joe Biden lowers Justice Stephen Breyer’s replacement requirements to “the first black woman ever nominated to the United States Supreme Court,” bringing affirmative action to the Supreme Court. Pool/AP/Reuters/Reuters/Reuters/Reuters/Reuters/Reuters/Reuters/Reuters/Reuters Mark Kelly’s composite
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The print issue of the February 3, 2022, was published.
