Carbon offsets are becoming increasingly popular and cited in many corporate sustainability plans as a key mechanism to "go green." Yet, this markets-based approach is severely limited in its ability to reduce global CO2 emissions. What are offsets and how are they hurting our progress towards a net neutral economy by 2050? What policies might we enact instead?

J. Christopher Giancarlo had a thirty-year career as a Wall Street lawyer and finance executive before emerging as leader of one of the world's most important market regulators, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, known as the CFTC. In the face of both domestic and international criticism, he led the agency to recognize the digitization of markets and foster the development of cryptocurrencies.

Investor Bill Hwang set off a storm in the stock market in March when his firm, Archegos Capital Management, and its banks, began liquidating huge positions in blue-chip companies, according to people familiar with the transactions. The sales sent individual stocks swooning and have left at least three banks with major damage. As a family office - a firm generally created to handle the investments of a single wealthy person and a small circle around them - Archegos was essentially unregulated.

Financial services regulatory reform will continue to be active these next three plus years, with the Biden administration focused on activity at the intersection of financial regulation and social policy. However, the pace and tenor of change under the administration will be heavily influenced by the leadership of and senior personnel at the federal prudential and market regulators.

There is an imminent eviction tsunami as a result of the lapsing at year-end 2020 of Covid-19 related relief under the CARES Act and the CDC's eviction moratorium. Come January, renters will owe close to $70 billion in unpaid rent by the time it comes due, or $5,400 for the typical family that has fallen behind, and up to 8.4 million renter households, which include 20.1 million individual renters, could experience an eviction filing. This event will bring together housing experts and policymakers to discuss the coming eviction crisis and propose bipartisan policy interventions.

Sarah Quinn, author of the new book: "American Bonds: How Credit Markets Shaped a Nation." Dr. Quinn discusses how since the Westward expansion, the U.S. government has used financial markets to manage America's complex social divides, and politicians and officials across the political spectrum have turned to land sales, home ownership, and credit to provide economic opportunity without the appearance of market intervention or direct wealth redistribution.

Sarah L. Quinn is associate professor of sociology at the University of Washington.

Brandon Winford discusses his new book, John Hervey Wheeler, Black Banking, and the Economic Struggle for Civil Rights. Wheeler was one of the civil rights movement's most influential leaders. In articulating a bold vision of regional prosperity grounded in full citizenship and economic power for African Americans, this banker, lawyer, and visionary played a leading role in the fight for racial and economic equality throughout North Carolina. Wheeler began his career as a teller at Mechanics and Farmers Bank and rose to become bank president.

Katharina Pistor discusses her new book, The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality. The book is a major intervention about the nature of modern capitalism. Pistor argues for the central role of the law in shaping the distribution of wealth and makes a compelling case that it is law that creates capital itself. Katharina Pistor is the Edwin B. Parker Professor of Comparative Law at Columbia Law School and director of the Law School's Center on Global Legal Transformation. Her work spans comparative law and corporate governance, law and finance, and law and development.

Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Commissioner, Rostin Behnam, and former Deputy Treasury Secretary, Sarah Bloom Raskin, discuss the risks that climate change poses to the stability of our financial system. Since joining the CFTC, Commissioner Behnam has advocated that the CFTC utilize its authority and expertise to ensure the derivatives markets innovate responsibly within an appropriate oversight framework. He recently led the CFTC's effort to establish the Climate-Related Market Risk Subcommittee.

Most of us rarely think about how we pay for goods and services. For millions of working families, America's slow and antiquated payment system costs billions through check cashers, pay day lenders, and bank overdraft fees. America's payment system is among the slowest in the world for major economies. Recognizing the need to improve, the Federal Reserve recently requested thoughts on how to upgrade America's payment system to operate in real time.

During the 2008 financial crisis, Citigroup was presented as the victim of events beyond its control - larger financial panic, unforeseen economic disruptions, and a perfect storm of credit expansion, private greed, and public incompetence. To save the economy and keep the bank afloat, the government provided huge infusions of cash through multiple bailouts that angered the American public. But, as financial experts James Freeman and Vern McKinley reveal, the 2008 crisis was just one of many disasters Citi has experienced since its founding more than 200 years ago.

The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers was the pivotal event of the 2008 financial crisis. Ever since the bankruptcy, there's been heated debate about why the Federal Reserve did not rescue Lehman in the same way it rescued other financial institutions. The Fed's leaders strongly asserted that they lacked the legal authority to save Lehman because it did not have adequate collateral for the loan it needed to survive.

Former Democratic Congressman Barney Frank and former Deputy Treasury Secretary Sarah Bloom Raskin discuss their thoughts on the current state of financial regulation and how the finance industry evolved after the financial crisis. Chairman Frank previously served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts from 1981 to 2013. He served as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee (2007-2011) and was a leading co-sponsor of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act. Governor Raskin served as Deputy Treasury Secretary from 2014 to January 20, 2017.

Sarah Bloom Raskin discusses insights gained from her career at the pinnacle of financial policy making. From March 2014 through January 2017, Ms. Raskin was Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Prior to this, Ms. Raskin served as a Governor of the Federal Reserve Board, where she conducted the nation's monetary policy, regulated banking institutions, monitored threats to financial stability, oversaw compliance and community development, and engaged in oversight of the nation's payment systems. Ms.

Norm Champ discusses insights from his new book: "Going Public: My Adventures Inside the SEC and How to Prevent the Next Devastating Crisis" http://amzn.to/2nvFrgm.

The prevailing narrative of the financial crisis is that it was caused by Wall Street greed and insufficient regulation. In response, Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Act, which fundamentally reformed financial sector regulation. But what if this narrative is wrong, and the government's attempts to prevent future financial crises slowed our economic recovery? Peter Wallison discusses how the misinterpretation of the causes of the financial crisis resulted in the Dodd-Frank Act, our slow economic recovery, and the election of Donald Trump.

Eight years have passed since the "Great Financial Crisis." The efforts of legislators and regulators have gone a long way toward protecting the safety and soundness of our large banks. Yet the system remains vulnerable. Highly leveraged and interconnected financial firms continue to rely on panic-prone funding structures, posing a clear risk of contagious "runs." Today, it is not the heavily regulated commercial banks that are the main source of concern.

The era of "too big to fail" banks is far from over. Eight years after the financial crisis, banks are bigger and more complex. One critical post-crisis effort to reduce banks' risks was the adoption of the Volcker Rule, which prohibits banks from proprietary trading and owning significant interests in funds. But many policymakers and members of the public want more to be done, with some even calling for banks to be broken up.

Duke Law professors Samuel Buell, Steven Schwarcz, and Lawrence Baxter discuss the film The Big Short and its issues in an in depth panel discussion.. The film explores a number of issues, including: complex securitizations, a lack of regulation, and the nature of financial fraud.

Originally recorded on October 6, 2016.

Sponsored by the Global Financial Markets Center.