Overview

Bureaucratic Politics and Finance

Video transcript

What to do: Read through this page for an overview of the week.

Learning outcomes for this week

This week, our activities, content, and assignments will help you to be able to do the following:

How effective is Congress at making financial policy?
With what you understand of the federal government policymaking and implementation process, what are some of the difficulties in having so many different regulators of the financial system? What role did this play in the financial crisis of 2008?
What is the role of the Federal Reserve (Central Bank) in our society and how effectively have they done at fulfilling their role?
How important is the independence of the Federal Reserve from political influence? Is it independent?
Is meaningful financial oversight possible? How much cooperation is needed from corporations and financial institutions?
Why do you think that the Dodd-Frank Act was resisted? Does it matter that it is slowly being watered down?

Keep these objectives/discussion questions in mind when reading this week's assigned chapters and articles and while watching the assigned videos. However, as this is a current events analysis week, you will not be required to discuss these questions with classmates.

Course roadmap

Here's everything you need to do and remember for the week. These items will all appear, in order, in the module for this week.

Complete the reading and watch the videos listed on the Coursework page
Write and revise your weekly Coursework Summary and Analysis
Submit your Company Analysis: Presentation for Policymaker assignment
Submit your Module 14 Current Events Analysis assignment

^^Special Explanation: The Presentation and Current Events Analysis are staggered so there is not more than one assignment due on the same day. They are strategically presented in this order (presentation due Friday and current events due Sunday) because we have a number of students in the class who work full time and do most if not all of their coursework on weekends.