Speaker biographies

Jay Brinkmann is the chief economist and senior vice president of research and economics for the Mortgage Bankers Association, where his responsibilities include economic forecasting, mortgage industry analysis, benchmarking industry profitability, and providing support for legislative and regulatory initiatives. Previously, Mr. Brinkmann worked for Fannie Mae’s Portfolio Strategy Group and was on the faculty of the business school at the University of Houston, where he specialized in financial institution regulation and energy derivatives markets. He has also served as a commercial banker, the deputy chief of staff to Louisiana governor David Treen, and a Capitol Hill press secretary. Mr. Brinkmann has published articles in numerous academic journals and on the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal. He is frequently interviewed by newspapers and the major business networks on real estate finance topics.

James Grant is the founder and editor of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, a financial markets journal. He is the author of six books, including Mr. Market Miscalculates (Axios Press, November 2008) and John Adams: Party of One (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2005), and he previously wrote for Barron’s and the Baltimore Sun. Mr. Grant is a founding general partner of Nippon Partners, which invests in Japanese equities. He was a long time panelist on Louis Rukeyser’s Wall Street Week and has appeared on 60 Minutes, CBS Evening News, Nightly Business Report, and Bloomberg TV.

Desmond Lachman joined AEI as a resident fellow after serving as a managing director and chief emerging market economic strategist at Salomon Smith Barney. He previously served as deputy director in the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Policy and Review Department and was active in staff formulation of IMF policies toward emerging markets. Mr. Lachman has written on topics such as economic policy, fund arrangements, monetary reform, import restrictions, and exchange rates. At AEI, he studies major emerging market economies and the role of multilateral lending institutions.

Alex J. Pollock has been a resident fellow at AEI since 2004, focusing on financial policy issues, including government-sponsored enterprises, retirement finance, housing finance, corporate governance, accounting standards, and issues raised by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Previously, he spent thirty-five years in banking, including twelve years as president and chief executive officer of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago, while also writing numerous articles on financial systems and management. He is a director of Allied Capital Corporation, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the Great Lakes Higher Education Corporation, the International Union for Housing Finance, and chairman of the board of the Great Books Foundation.

View Event Details