This is a new, progressive economic policy blog from the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute that launched on April 29th.

The effort is lead by Robert Johnson, former Chief Economist of the US Senate Banking Committee. With contributors like Joseph Stiglitz, New Deal 2.0 is a “one-stop shop” for new insights, analyses and proposals on the country’s economic crisis.

Features will include:

• Braintrusters: Profiles and Q&As with the leading voices in economic and progressive policy, including Joseph Stiglitz, Jeff Madrick, Stanley Greenberg, Hendrik Hertzberg, Elaine Kamarck, Reverend Jim Wallis, Samuel Issacharoff, Anna Burger, Sean Wilentz, and Marcia Dyson.
• The Decoder: Experts explain thorny policies, complicated issues and complex arguments.
• On Markets and Morals: Reverend Jim Wallis and other leading voices offer ideas on the moral vision that should guide our policy making.

The official site, http://www.newdeal20.org, is now live.

In addition, The Roosevelt Institute kicked off the launch of New Deal 2.0 on April 29 in New York with a breakfast panel featuring Nobel Laureates Joseph Stiglitz & Robert Solow, as well as Robert Johnson. Panelists evaluated the economic policy of Obama’s first 100 days and recommend course corrections as the administration moves forward. Their discussion was live-streamed (and live-blogged) on New Deal 2.0. Following the panel, Stiglitz and Johnson gave a media-only, on-the-record briefing with time for Q&A.

Below is a clip from the April 29th session.

100 Days and the Road Ahead from Kara Masi on Vimeo.

Related posts:

• Ackman and Stigliz talk Stress Tests with Charlie Rose
• A conversation with Robert Caro on Charlie Rose
• A finance view of the political nature of the coming GM bankruptcy
• Simon Johnson: Too big to fail is “too big to exist”
• Jon Stewart: French Finance Minister Lagarde interview

In this much-talked about Charlie Rose roundtable with Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz joined by Bill Ackman of Pershing Square, Andrew Ross Sorkin of the New York Times and Kate Kelly of the Wall Street Journal, these experts discuss the government-administered stress tests. Joseph Stiglitz has been particularly negative about the Obama Administration’s banking crisis plan.

If you want to know what is going on in the U.S. banking system and how the Federal Government plans to deal with big banks, this is a must-see video. Nationalization, debt-for-equity-swaps, bailouts, capital, leverage, everything you want to know is in this discussion. Ackman does a good job in arguing that the bailouts are NOT going to increase lending and that debt-for-equity swaps are necessary.

These stress tests are supposed to tell us who’s strong and who’s not among the 19 largest financial institutions in the United States.

Stiglitz has the money quote here.

“The issue is who is going to bear the risk of the uncertain valuation [of assets on bank balance sheets] and is it the people who gave the money to the bank [bondholders] or is it the U.S. taxpayer.”

Related posts:

• Reinhart: Not everybody can be above-average in stress tests
• Stress tests reveal Citi and BofA need more capital, but you knew that already
• GMAC has been nationalized
• At least six banks need more capital under stress tests
• Black: Stress tests and the Big Lie