Video Interview: Robert Johnson at the New Economics Institute Strategies for a New Economy Conference
Recorded live at the New Economics Institute Strategies for a New Economy Conference on June 9, 2012, Institute for New Economic Thinking Executive Director Robert Johnson speaks about valuing access to common resources, and the adverse social impacts of inequality. "Water and air are priced at zero, meaning in order to breathe, I don't have to pay a tollgate," Johnson says. "On the other hand, if you cut off my air and water, I would be willing to pay to get it turned back on -- so there's something amiss in a theory of value that doesn't value these common resources, the common pool upon which we all base our continuing ability to be alive."
"The questions of inequality are really really raging," Johnson continues. "The most important thing I see is that the consequences of inequality for society are adverse. If inequality produces bad social side effects, then we have to reexamine what technologies and what trade regimes we choose to employ -- not just from the standpoint of the nation, but from the standpoint of the entire planet. I think we're encroaching, through pain, upon the frontier where these possibilities and these problems have to be addressed."
Visit the Strategies for a New Economy Conference webpage for more information, including videos, resources, and a Storify timeline of tweets from the conference: http://neweconomicsinstitute.org/conference
For information on the New Economics Institute, please contact:
Carina Millstone
857.284.2915
carinamillstone@neweconomicsinstitute.org
About The New Economics Institute The New Economics Institute is a US organization that combines vision, theory, action, and communication to effect a transition to a new economy -- an economy that gives priority to supporting human wellbeing and Earth’s natural systems. The organization is the successor organization to the 30-year old,well-respected E.F. Schumacher Institute. The Institute is headed by newly appointed President and CEO, Dr. Robert K. Massie and currently has offices in New York City, NY, and Great Barrington, MA. The New Economics Institute’s multidisciplinary approach employs research, applied theory, public campaigns, and educational events to describe an alternative socio-economic system that is capable of addressing the enormous challenges of our times. NEI current projects include the well-known BerkShares Local Currency Program, the Community Land Trust Program, and the Global Transition Map to a New Economy. The New Economics Institute Board of Directors include Gar Alperovitz, Jessica Brackman, John Fullerton, Neva Goodwin, Hildegarde Hannum, Eric Harris-Braun, Dan Levinson, Bob Massie, Richard Norgaard, David Orr, Will Raap, Gus Speth, Peter Victor, Stewart Wallis, Timothy Wirth and Susan Witt.About Robert Johnson
Robert Johnson serves as Executive Director of the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) and is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Global Finance Project for the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute in New York. An international investor and consultant to investment funds on issues of portfolio strategy, he recently served on the United Nations Commission of Experts on International Monetary Reform under the Chairmanship of Joseph Stiglitz.
Previously Johnson was a Managing Director at Soros Fund Management, where he oversaw a global currency, bond, and equity portfolio specializing in emerging markets. Before that he was a Managing Director of Bankers Trust Company, in charge of a global currency fund.
Johnson served as Chief Economist of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee under the leadership of Chairman William Proxmire (D. Wisconsin) and earlier was Senior Economist of the U.S. Senate Budget Committee under the leadership of Chairman Pete Domenici (R. New Mexico).
He was Executive Producer of the Oscar-winning documentary, Taxi to the Dark Side, directed by Alex Gibney. The former President of the National Scholastic Chess Foundation, he currently sits on the Board of Directors of both the Economic Policy Institute and the Campaign for America’s Future.
Johnson received a Ph.D. and M.A. in Economics from Princeton University and a B.S. in both Electrical Engineering and Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
