Blogger Profile: Matt Stoller
Matt Stoller is an American political activist and writer. From 2009-2011, he served as Senior Policy Advisor to Rep. Alan Grayson of Florida's eighth Congressional district. As Grayson's financial services legislative aide, Stoller focused on foreclosure fraud, the financial crisis, and the Federal Reserve. Prior to his staff role, Stoller worked as a political consultant and blogger in liberal politics and on trans-partisan coalitions.
At the Roosevelt Institute, Matt Stoller works on illuminating government policies on foreclosures, the Federal Reserve, and consumer protection.
Matt Stoller
Roosevelt Institute
May 22nd, 2012
In Greek Humanitarian Crisis, It Will Be Leftists Or Neo-Nazis
Austerity doesn’t just lead to unemployment and misery. If it goes on long enough, it will inevitably lead to the emergence of “swamp thing” extremists into positions of power. Take the situation in Greece, a country which until recently was a wealthy Western democracy with a relatively stable political system. ...
Matt Stoller
Roosevelt Institute
February 29th, 2012
One in Seven Americans Pursued by Debt Collectors
I went through the Federal Reserve’s Quarterly Release on Household Debt and Credit released today, and there were two notable trends. One is that the amount of consumer debt is declining, but that delinquency rates are stabilizing above what they were before the crisis. And the second is in this graph, which is ...
Matt Stoller
Roosevelt Institute
February 27th, 2012
Warren Buffett Says “Hormones” Will Fix the Housing Crisis
Last week, Warren Buffett made some news with his folksy, charming as always shareholder letter. Most people focused on his admission that he was wrong about the housing crisis. Buffett pointed to his year ago statement that “a housing recovery will probably begin within a year or so.” And ...
Matt Stoller
Roosevelt Institute
December 19th, 2011
Treat foreclosure as a crime scene
Crossposted from PoliticoBubbling under the surface of politics is the foreclosure crisis — where the power of big finance is brushing up against the rule of law. The party leaders seem to have decided it is essentially a giant — but unavoidable — tragedy. GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney said ...
Matt Stoller
Roosevelt Institute
December 3rd, 2011
A Real Third Party? An Anti-Big Bank Republican? Yup.
Like many of you, I had mostly given up on electoral politics. One time I went through a log of Hank Paulson’s phone calls when he was Treasury Secretary, and then Tim Geithner’s phone calls when he was Treasury Secretary. And I realized that both men were talking to essentially ...
Matt Stoller
Roosevelt Institute
November 19th, 2011
Matt Stoller: Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto Cracks Open the Financial Crisis
Learn the name Catherine Cortez Masto, because she just took a big leap in front of every public servant in the country in terms of restoring faith in government. As Nevada AG, she actually indicted someone for blowing up our housing system. Specifically, she handed down 606 counts of felony ...
Matt Stoller
Roosevelt Institute
October 25th, 2011
Can the Power of Occupy Wall Street Make Obama a Populist?
It's been a little over a month since this bolt of political lightning known as Occupy Wall Street jolted through the political establishment. It's time to assess just what Occupy Wall Street has gotten done. That it has accomplished a great deal is beyond dispute. Franklin Foer in the New Republic ...
Matt Stoller
Roosevelt Institute
October 6th, 2011
The Anti-Politics of #OccupyWallStreet
Journalist Amy Goodman arrested at the 2008 Republican National Convention What do the people at #OccupyWallStreet actually want? What are their demands? For many people, this is THE question. So let me answer it. What they want… is to do exactly what they are doing. They want to occupy ...
Matt Stoller
Roosevelt Institute
September 29th, 2011
#OccupyWallStreet Is a Church of Dissent, Not a Protest
Last weekend, I spent a few days with the protesters downtown near Wall Street, and it was an eye-opening experience. The people there want something, but it’s not a list of demands, and it is entirely overlooked by the media and most commentators on the protest. If all you read ...
Matt Stoller
Roosevelt Institute
September 7th, 2011
The Corrupt Establishment Begins Smearing Eric Schneiderman
Last month we had New York Fed Board Member Kathryn Wylde whining and meddling about Eric Schneiderman’s investigation into big banks. That seriously backfired. HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan put pressure on him as well, and that didn’t go over so well. And after Tom Miller petulantly stopped allowing Schneiderman on ...
Matt Stoller
Roosevelt Institute
August 31st, 2011
Sell America to Communist China Faster, Says New York Fed Official and Schneiderman Foe Kathryn Wylde
The elite consensus in American politics is held together by a small group of well-paid and well-connected insiders who are marbled throughout the world of corporations, banks, government service, and elite nonprofits. Who are they? And what do they believe? One way to start is to look at who is ...
Matt Stoller
Roosevelt Institute
August 29th, 2011
Power Politics – What Eric Schneiderman Reveals About Obama
A lot of people have asked why New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is going after the banks as aggressively as he is. It’s almost unbelievable that one lone elected official, who happens to have powerful legal tools at his disposal, is doing something that no one with any serious ...
Matt Stoller
Roosevelt Institute
August 13th, 2011
An excuse for slashing entitlements
Crossposted from PoliticoWith all the talk of Standard & Poor’s downgrade, no one mentioned that the ratings agency’s business model is, essentially, lying for money. Instead, many politicians insist that the S&P downgrade is the reason for the market turmoil — not the banking freeze-ups in the Eurozone or political ...
Matt Stoller
Roosevelt Institute
August 8th, 2011
Matt Stoller: Standard & Poor’s Predatory Policy Agenda
While it’s useful to think of the ratings agencies as incompetent, or as greedy, it’s important to remember that they have an actual policy agenda. They weren’t just wrong in rating subprime tranches of toxic dreck AAA. They were also pivotal in actively creating the policies that led to the ...
Matt Stoller
Roosevelt Institute
August 3rd, 2011
What Presidency?
If you have only one rule in politics, I suggest the following – get your head of out your television set, and start paying attention to government. The narrow intense focus of TV can constrain us so powerfully that we are blinded by technicolor. To explain – there’s an endless ...
Matt Stoller
Roosevelt Institute
July 22nd, 2011
Dodd-Frank Made No Structural Changes to Banking System
Crossposted from New Deal 2.0I was a staffer on the Dodd-Frank legislative package, and the whole process seemed odd from the very beginning. There was no attempt initially to ask the question, “what happened and what should we do about it?” There was no examination of the purpose of a ...
Matt Stoller
Roosevelt Institute
July 18th, 2011
Elizabeth Warren Versus Barack Obama on Leadership
Last week, I caught some of the grilling of Elizabeth Warren by GOP Congressmen during the House Oversight Reform Hearing. At one point, a Republican Congressmen asked Warren if she was “running a campaign” to convince people of the validity of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau she is in the ...