Latest / Trumponomics / Trump’s Financial Reforms: Needed Correction or Ticking Time Bomb?

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Trump’s Financial Reforms: Needed Correction or Ticking Time Bomb? · Trumponomics

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
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Speaker 2: It's going to be the largest regulatory reduction in the
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Speaker 2: history of our country.
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Speaker 3: It's going to happen very fairs.
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Speaker 2: I'm Stephanie Flanders, head of Government and Economics at Bloomberg,
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Speaker 2: and this is trump Anomics, the podcast that looks at
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Speaker 2: the economic world of Donald Trump, how he's already shaped
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Speaker 2: the global economy and what on earth is going to
0:36
Speaker 2: happen next. And this week we're talking about Donald Trump's
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Speaker 2: way with money, all kinds of it. The old guard
0:43
Speaker 2: on Wall Street and the crypto punks are all delighted
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Speaker 2: with the administration's plans for the financial sector so far,
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Speaker 2: especially the big push on deregulation. That's no mean feat.
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Speaker 2: I mean, there's little else these folks could agree on.
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Speaker 2: But when the financial sector gets everything it's asked for,
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Speaker 2: that's not always good news for the rest of us.
1:02
Speaker 2: In loosening the guardrails on the banks, or at least
1:04
Speaker 2: saying that's what it wants to do, and giving the
1:07
Speaker 2: presidential seal of approval to all kinds of crypto, is
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Speaker 2: the administration laying the groundwork for the next big financial crisis,
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Speaker 2: or just correcting the mountain of bureaucracy, regulation, and risk
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Speaker 2: aversion that descended on America's financial system in the years
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Speaker 2: after the financial crisis of two thousand and eight. That's
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Speaker 2: what I'm wondering about this week, and I have two
1:28
Speaker 2: expert colleagues to help me navigate it all. Joining from
1:32
Speaker 2: New York Christine Harper, a member of the Bloomberg editorial
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Speaker 2: board and also the co author with the man himself,
1:38
Speaker 2: of Paul Volker's biography, And in Washington, D C. Katanga Johnson,
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Speaker 2: who's our lead reporter covering banking regulation in that bureau.
1:47
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for coming, both of you.
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Speaker 1: Thank you thanks for having us in.
1:54
Speaker 2: So Kittanga, we tend to come to reporters first because
1:57
Speaker 2: they're the ones who are trying to kind of keep
1:58
Speaker 2: track of everything that's going on. When the administration came in,
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Speaker 2: what would you say were their big priorities in thinking
2:05
Speaker 2: about the state of financial regulation in the US and
2:08
Speaker 2: the administrative system that they were inheriting.
2:11
Speaker 1: On day one, Trump's regulators really wanted to focus on
2:14
Speaker 1: streamlining all regulatory and supervisory efforts to make sure that
2:19
Speaker 1: small banks, community banks could compete and that bigger banks
2:23
Speaker 1: weren't necessarily complying with rules that were, as they say,
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Speaker 1: goal plated or much more onerous than the framers had anticipated.
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Speaker 1: Part of that focus was really to address things that
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Speaker 1: didn't really address a bank's balance sheet, things like climate
2:39
Speaker 1: rules restricting access and partnerships with FinTechs and non banks,
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Speaker 1: heavier hand on anything tied to crypto. Trump's regulators came
2:47
Speaker 1: in thinking, how can we level the playing field for
2:50
Speaker 1: banks to compete, whether those were smaller banks and bigger banks,
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Speaker 1: And let's pause anything that the bui An administration proposed
2:57
Speaker 1: and then revisit some of the bigger ticket items addressed
3:00
Speaker 1: issues that actually affected their ability to end, like capital
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Speaker 1: liquidity and all the rest.
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Speaker 3: Okay, so that's really useful.
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Speaker 2: We've tended to think that the administration has acted extremely
3:11
Speaker 2: quickly on an enormous range of fronts in its first
3:13
Speaker 2: few months. If you think about those goals that you
3:16
Speaker 2: just set out, how are they doing if they made
3:18
Speaker 2: some big moves in those directions.
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Speaker 1: On the one hand, initially privately you'd hear folks on
3:24
Speaker 1: Wall Street and even some in Washington would agree there
3:27
Speaker 1: are things of the administrations doing that's not quite the
3:30
Speaker 1: main priority that included a flurry of executive orders that
3:33
Speaker 1: seemed to get in the way of regulators getting to work.
3:36
Speaker 1: But to some degree, the personnel moves that we've seen
3:39
Speaker 1: at the agencies have really made a big difference in
3:41
Speaker 1: terms of their ability to get the deregulation agenda started,
3:45
Speaker 1: and chiefly at the FAD the departure of Michael Barr, who,
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Speaker 1: as the Vice Chair of Supervision under Biden, was supposed
3:53
Speaker 1: to be in office until next year. His departure in
3:56
Speaker 1: a bid to sort of avoid a fight with Trump,
3:59
Speaker 1: open the way for Michelle Bowman, who's now the fed's
4:01
Speaker 1: top bank cop, to come in and really take a
4:04
Speaker 1: look at Okay, what are the main issues that banks
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Speaker 1: have said they want to see paused and what are
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Speaker 1: things that we could begin to do around capital and
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Speaker 1: the major agenda items so far out of the FED
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Speaker 1: and indeed all of the regulators has been a major
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Speaker 1: capital rule, this enhanced supplemental Leverage ratio, which is the
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Speaker 1: beginning of easing capital rules for banks. There are others
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Speaker 1: that we expect, but already having a proposal with a
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Speaker 1: thirty day comment period on that item, in addition to
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Speaker 1: pausing other rules that sort of got in the way,
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Speaker 1: has been in some ways ahead of track for the administration,
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Speaker 1: again because of Mar's departure.
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Speaker 2: It's good you've taken us to the effect because I
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Speaker 2: want to get onto that a bit later. I think
4:44
Speaker 2: we tend to focus a lot on what's going to
4:46
Speaker 2: happen to the chairmanship of the FED, and thinking about
4:49
Speaker 2: Jay Pale and whether he's going to get FED and
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Speaker 2: how much power that might get the president. But as
4:54
Speaker 2: you've reminded us, there's lots of people behind slightly less
4:58
Speaker 2: high profile things that the FED is deeply involved in
5:02
Speaker 2: which the administration can have a lot of influence over
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Speaker 2: partly because of that personnel change you just mentioned Michelle Bowman.
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Speaker 2: So we'll get onto that in a bit. But Christine,
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Speaker 2: after many years of very distinguished reporting in different areas,
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Speaker 2: often in finance in Bloomberg, you're now on the editorial board,
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Speaker 2: and so you're associated with the editorials. And I was
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Speaker 2: quite struck by one on financial deregulation that was published
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Speaker 2: soon after President Trump was re elected, saying this campaign's
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Speaker 2: disdained for the administrative state and the public's growing exasperation
5:33
Speaker 2: with red tape suggests the country is in for a
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Speaker 2: period of bureaucratic humility. Here's hoping the financial system doesn't
5:40
Speaker 2: become vulnerable as a result. Well, I think you've got
5:43
Speaker 2: the bureaucratic humility right.
5:46
Speaker 3: But do you think.
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Speaker 2: Overall that we're heading in a direction where the financial
5:50
Speaker 2: system will be less safe?
5:52
Speaker 4: Well it's hard to say. I mean, but as Katanga
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Speaker 4: was pointing out, personnel is really policy here. I mean,
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Speaker 4: besides Michelle Bauman, who's been a very staunch opponent of
6:03
Speaker 4: many of the regulatory efforts under Biden, the Trump administration
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Speaker 4: has named to all of the key regulatory posts people
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Speaker 4: who are, you know, advocates for the industry in one
6:14
Speaker 4: way or another. I think even Michelle Bowman has named
6:18
Speaker 4: one of the top lobbyists for the banks as a
6:20
Speaker 4: key deputy. So now there are people in position to
6:24
Speaker 4: rewrite or pause in many cases, rules or enforcement actions
6:29
Speaker 4: that the industry didn't like. That's not always a bad thing.
6:33
Speaker 4: Some of the things that were happening under the Biden
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Speaker 4: administration were just, you know, probably over aggressive. Gary Gensler
6:41
Speaker 4: had an incredible record at the SEC of writing and
6:44
Speaker 4: proposing rules, far exceeding his predecessors, and many of the
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Speaker 4: rules he was proposing were not required by statute, so
6:51
Speaker 4: he was really going above and beyond, and that is
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Speaker 4: all being dialed back pretty quickly. The people who are
6:58
Speaker 4: in place are just right now just trying to and
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Speaker 4: anything that was happening under their predecessors. And as I said,
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Speaker 4: some of that makes sense. For instance, these really onerous
7:06
Speaker 4: requirements on mergers between banks and probably don't make that
7:11
Speaker 4: much sense. Bank mergers are in and of themselves not
7:14
Speaker 4: a bad thing. They can actually make the system safer sometimes.
7:18
Speaker 4: That said, I mean, they've basically gutted the Consumer Financial
7:21
Speaker 4: Protection Bureau, which had done some pretty useful work in
7:24
Speaker 4: protecting consumers. And remains to be seen how lowering capital
7:29
Speaker 4: requirements as are proposing will affect the resilience of banks
7:33
Speaker 4: if things go wrong. And then they're dialing back some
7:36
Speaker 4: of the oversight that had been proposed over the sort
7:39
Speaker 4: of so called shadow banking system, which poses its own
7:42
Speaker 4: set of potential dangers. I thought it was interesting just
7:45
Speaker 4: to make one point that the SEC one of the
7:48
Speaker 4: commissioners who's still on the Commission, who's a Republican, is
7:51
Speaker 4: Hester Pierce. She's so pro the cryptocurrency industry that she's
7:56
Speaker 4: known as crypto mom, but she actually put out a
7:59
Speaker 4: fascinating last week pushing back at the effort to tokenize
8:03
Speaker 4: all the financial instruments. If you tokenize things, it doesn't
8:07
Speaker 4: magically change the underlying thing. You can't just avoid securities
8:11
Speaker 4: laws by tokenizing something. So even people are who are
8:15
Speaker 4: industry advocates who are starting to see they need to
8:18
Speaker 4: push back a little bit against some of the excessive
8:22
Speaker 4: optimism of the people there.
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Speaker 2: So just to touch into the weeds a little bit.
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Speaker 2: One of the rules that has certainly been a little
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Speaker 2: bit unpopular among some of the big banks is this
8:33
Speaker 2: supplemental ratio, which is supposed to be about maintaining the
8:38
Speaker 2: strength of the balance sheet of the bank and making
8:40
Speaker 2: sure that they can't be too highly leveraged. But there's
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Speaker 2: a change in effective loosening in that which the administration
8:47
Speaker 2: is very keen to achieve. You know, roughly, what is
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Speaker 2: that aimed at doing? Katanga?
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Speaker 1: Roughly, the regulators hope that by making changes to the ratio,
8:57
Speaker 1: to the enhanced supplementary leverage ratio, that trading in the
9:02
Speaker 1: twenty nine trillion dollar treasuries market, particularly in a.
9:05
Speaker 3: Moment you had federal government bonds, Yeah.
9:07
Speaker 1: Would be easier for the likes of JP, Morgan Goldmansas,
9:11
Speaker 1: and Morgan Stanley, And by lowering that requirement for those banks,
9:16
Speaker 1: it would allow them and their subsidiaries to sort of
9:19
Speaker 1: have the same requirement.
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Speaker 2: So, Christine, I'm remembering in the first Trump administration, some
9:25
Speaker 2: of the constraints that were put on banks after the
9:27
Speaker 2: global financial crisis were paired back, and then it was
9:31
Speaker 2: suggested later that those changes had helped put us on
9:34
Speaker 2: a path to the bank failures we had a couple
9:36
Speaker 2: of years ago. I guess you know, Silicon Valley Banks
9:39
Speaker 2: signature First Republic. Do you have the same kind of
9:42
Speaker 2: worries about this effort to change the supplemental leverage ratio
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Speaker 2: or do you think it actually makes a bit of sense.
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Speaker 4: Well, I mean, it's certainly true that the size of
9:52
Speaker 4: the treasury market has grown dramatically since those rules were
9:55
Speaker 4: first proposed back in I think twenty fourteen, and so
9:58
Speaker 4: when they were proposed, there was supposed to be this
10:01
Speaker 4: limit on how many assets banks could have compared to
10:05
Speaker 4: their level of capital, even if those assets were super
10:08
Speaker 4: safe things like treasuries or central bank reserves. So they
10:12
Speaker 4: wanted to make sure that there was a minimum sort
10:15
Speaker 4: of backstop, no matter what the riskiness of their assets was.
10:18
Speaker 4: But as this treasury market has grown, now the banks
10:20
Speaker 4: are constrained when things really developed from being able to
10:24
Speaker 4: just buy unlimited treasuries, and as a result you've seen
10:29
Speaker 4: a lot of hedge funds and proprietary trading firms step
10:32
Speaker 4: in and do a lot more activity in the treasury market.
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Speaker 4: The problem is that if you lower that backstop, that
10:39
Speaker 4: sort of minimum capital requirement for banks, you're just reducing
10:43
Speaker 4: the safety that bank depositors and other investors have that
10:48
Speaker 4: if something goes wrong in the assets on the bank's
10:50
Speaker 4: balance sheet, that they'll have enough capital to deal with it.
10:54
Speaker 4: So things just go wrong, they always do, and so
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Speaker 4: as a result, it would make more sense in my
11:00
Speaker 4: view to have capital requirements where they are. It doesn't
11:03
Speaker 4: seem necessarily to lower them. There are other ways you
11:05
Speaker 4: could solve the problems in the treasury market.
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Speaker 2: It is funny when you look at a bank balance sheet,
11:09
Speaker 2: there is this kind of basic fact that if it
11:10
Speaker 2: was any other business, you would say.
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Speaker 3: It was hugely bankrupt. You know.
11:14
Speaker 2: It's like they're the only institutions that are able to
11:16
Speaker 2: have a relatively small amount of equity, and then they're
11:20
Speaker 2: lending a huge amount on the back of that, which
11:22
Speaker 2: you'd never be able to do if you were just
11:23
Speaker 2: a sort of normal, normal company.
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Speaker 4: Right, And that's by design. And that's one of the
11:27
Speaker 4: arguments that a lot of the you know, private credit
11:29
Speaker 4: and non bank companies are saying is that you know,
11:32
Speaker 4: we have a different model where we have more permanent capital,
11:35
Speaker 4: and so there's no risk that depositors suddenly flee and
11:38
Speaker 4: you have a problem with, you know, trying to repay
11:41
Speaker 4: your lenders. But banks, you know, are always going to
11:44
Speaker 4: be leveraged. But making sure that they're not over leverage
11:47
Speaker 4: is sort of the core part of the post financial
11:50
Speaker 4: crisis regulation, and so any effort to sort of water
11:53
Speaker 4: that down seems concerning.
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Speaker 3: I could take it.
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Speaker 2: I think, I mean Scott Besson, the Treasury Sectuary, it
11:58
Speaker 2: does seem to be one of the key movers in
12:03
Speaker 2: this financial deregulation or certainly to this push to change
12:07
Speaker 2: banking regulation. And of course the Treasure Secutor has always
12:10
Speaker 2: had quite a lot of power in these areas, but
12:12
Speaker 2: I guess the way that the administration has concentrated power
12:16
Speaker 2: and gained a lot more influence over the independent agencies.
12:19
Speaker 2: You know, Supreme Court has kind of given them the
12:22
Speaker 2: power to hire and fire many of these officials or
12:25
Speaker 2: independent agencies who we previously would have thought of as
12:27
Speaker 2: a bit more arm's length from the administration. I mean,
12:31
Speaker 2: I write in thinking that he has become a particularly
12:34
Speaker 2: important figure in this and along with Michelle Bowman, is
12:38
Speaker 2: you know, really giving the administration a much sort of
12:41
Speaker 2: clearer unified policy making than we might have had in
12:45
Speaker 2: previous series.
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Speaker 1: You're right, Stephanie, that'son has really taken the helm of
12:50
Speaker 1: the financial regulators and said, let's coordinate our efforts by
12:54
Speaker 1: meeting with the heads of the three main banked regulators,
12:58
Speaker 1: the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, and the
13:00
Speaker 1: Treasury Zone Office of the Control of the Currency. Together,
13:04
Speaker 1: those three agencies are now trying to coordinate their efforts
13:08
Speaker 1: in streamlining rules, discussing the sort of priorities around changes
13:14
Speaker 1: to capital.
13:14
Speaker 2: Call me suspicious, but I can't help noticing that Scott
13:17
Speaker 2: Bessont the Treasury sector, who's now going to be also
13:20
Speaker 2: presiding over a massive increase in the number of US treasuries.
13:25
Speaker 2: I mean, the debt is going to go up by
13:26
Speaker 2: several trillion dollars at least according to almost everyone's forecast.
13:30
Speaker 2: Is it a coincidence that he also wants to make
13:32
Speaker 2: it much easier for banks to hold treasuries not worried
13:35
Speaker 2: too much about how many they own. Isn't that going
13:37
Speaker 2: to be unbalance sort of positive for the market at
13:40
Speaker 2: a time when the cost of borrowing for governments from
13:42
Speaker 2: going up.
13:43
Speaker 1: Many people would agree that yes. On its face, it's
13:45
Speaker 1: interesting that Beston is playing that role and seemingly following
13:49
Speaker 1: some strategy that many others either haven't haven't seen or
13:53
Speaker 1: haven't agreed on. But what the impact will be will
13:56
Speaker 1: be rather interesting, and I imagine a lot of ways
14:00
Speaker 1: people close to him privately must be discussing, Hey, have
14:03
Speaker 1: you considered what the outcome will be by addressing things
14:06
Speaker 1: in this way on both sides?
14:08
Speaker 2: Well, that's a very careful answer, which I would expect.
14:10
Speaker 2: I would expect no less. But lots of people will
14:12
Speaker 2: be amazed that we haven't talked about crypto yet, Christine.
14:15
Speaker 2: For people on the outside, that seems like the biggest
14:18
Speaker 2: sort of mood shift and change of direction for this
14:22
Speaker 2: administration when it comes to finance. I mean, that feels
14:25
Speaker 2: like the whole world of cryptocurrencies is being kind of
14:29
Speaker 2: welcomed into the American financial system in a way that
14:33
Speaker 2: was just not the case under the previous administration.
14:36
Speaker 4: But that's absolutely true. And just to return to your
14:40
Speaker 4: previous point about the treasury market, one of the first
14:44
Speaker 4: things that the Banking Committee got to was the Genius Act,
14:47
Speaker 4: which is a way of creating a regulatory framework for
14:50
Speaker 4: what are known as stable coins. This is a part
14:52
Speaker 4: of the crypto market that basically just as you know,
14:55
Speaker 4: a digital version of the dollar, let's say, and there's
14:58
Speaker 4: part of the regulatory regime will require them to own
15:01
Speaker 4: safe assets like in particularly treasuries, and there's an argument
15:06
Speaker 4: that this will increase demand for treasuries and help the
15:09
Speaker 4: dollar and whatnot. And so you're building a sort of
15:12
Speaker 4: a whole financial structure that's even more leveraged on treasury market.
15:18
Speaker 4: So stable coins and banks, as you've talked about, At
15:21
Speaker 4: a time when the treasury market maybe is becoming a
15:23
Speaker 4: little less reliable, as you just saw a downgrade from
15:27
Speaker 4: the third of the three big rating agencies, that maybe
15:30
Speaker 4: should be a cause for some concern, but otherwise, crypto
15:34
Speaker 4: in general sort of the irony is it's being boosted
15:37
Speaker 4: by regulation because they were the least regulated thing that
15:41
Speaker 4: existed and they could do whatever they wanted. And it
15:44
Speaker 4: turned out that was not good for the crypto industry
15:47
Speaker 4: because they went too far and they stole too much money,
15:49
Speaker 4: and people lost their life savings and got scammed and
15:53
Speaker 4: got defrauded, and there were a lot of problems. And
15:56
Speaker 4: so now they're writing rules to make people feel comfortable
16:01
Speaker 4: about the crypto industry. And it's interesting that these are
16:05
Speaker 4: rules that were essentially very similar to what Sam Bankman
16:08
Speaker 4: Freed was proposing back when he was on the Hill,
16:11
Speaker 4: you know, asking for regulation by the commodity in futures.
16:14
Speaker 3: Right before his company blew up.
16:16
Speaker 4: Yeah, before he went to jail. So you know, and
16:19
Speaker 4: Trump himself was a big skeptic of crypto back in
16:21
Speaker 4: the day, kind of in the same vein as Jamie
16:24
Speaker 4: Diamond and Warren Buffett. But now he's he's in the business,
16:27
Speaker 4: so he's a proponent. So yeah, everything seems to be
16:30
Speaker 4: designed on Capitol Hill to do whatever they can to
16:33
Speaker 4: help the crypto industry. And you know, there's I think
16:37
Speaker 4: a genuinely large degree of risk in that, you know,
16:41
Speaker 4: the volatility of these assets they're just not They don't
16:45
Speaker 4: have the tradition of risk management that the sort of
16:47
Speaker 4: you know, more established banking and financial system have, So
16:53
Speaker 4: there's a lot more volatility and there's no fundamental value
16:56
Speaker 4: in a lot of these sort of meme coins or
16:59
Speaker 4: different tokens. I mean stable coins are different, obviously, but
17:02
Speaker 4: even stable coins, it's going to be a lot of
17:05
Speaker 4: tech companies starting these. One way of thinking of it
17:08
Speaker 4: is you've sort of had banks that were becoming more
17:10
Speaker 4: technologically focused, and now you're having tech companies that are
17:13
Speaker 4: becoming more bank focused, and which do you feel safe
17:15
Speaker 4: for putting your money in. It's a real question. The
17:18
Speaker 4: risk is that there we're having a bubble, which you
17:20
Speaker 4: know is very possible. We had one in twenty twenty
17:24
Speaker 4: two that popped, and then if it all turns around,
17:28
Speaker 4: then you have a big you know. And the more
17:31
Speaker 4: the more that it's a traditional financial system is connected
17:35
Speaker 4: to it, the more risk you have for the broader
17:38
Speaker 4: economy and people who aren't connected to crypto.
17:42
Speaker 2: Good Tanka weren't. There's some limits that were put on
17:45
Speaker 2: the banks to prevent them having too much exposure to crypto,
17:49
Speaker 2: and the administrator's been talking about pairing those back.
17:54
Speaker 3: Is that right?
17:55
Speaker 1: So trust regulators have indeed sort of reversed those guardrails
17:59
Speaker 1: that were put in place f I mean the twenty
18:00
Speaker 1: twenty two issues in the industry, But since then they've
18:04
Speaker 1: tried to underscore the importance of banks that are holding
18:07
Speaker 1: crypto custody, as recently as this month saying banks really
18:11
Speaker 1: should bear in mind that the onus is on those
18:14
Speaker 1: institutions for any types they have with crypto firms to
18:16
Speaker 1: make sure that they are disclosed adequately and spell it
18:19
Speaker 1: for their customers with the risks are which is commonplace. Right,
18:22
Speaker 1: that's an expectation.
18:24
Speaker 2: You know, we saw that really work very well in
18:25
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight. Just to just be careful, just
18:28
Speaker 2: make sure you know the risks on your balance sheet
18:31
Speaker 2: if you were one of the big banks. There has
18:33
Speaker 2: to be something a little bit alarming about this zeal
18:37
Speaker 2: to have this whole new form of finance that, really,
18:42
Speaker 2: although it's somewhat regulated, now makes a virtue of not
18:46
Speaker 2: being very transparent, of being difficult to track, and somewhat
18:51
Speaker 2: outside the traditional system. You have the Peter Tiels of
18:54
Speaker 2: this world and others they actively want to you would say,
18:57
Speaker 2: dis intermediate you know, bring the final outside of traditional banks.
19:02
Speaker 2: It is a threat to the traditional financial system ultimately,
19:05
Speaker 2: and its administration seems to be all in favor.
19:08
Speaker 4: Well, I mean in two ways. So I would say
19:11
Speaker 4: one thing that's been a rallying cry among Republicans this
19:14
Speaker 4: year has been this claim that the big banks were debanking,
19:19
Speaker 4: meaning denying banking services to crypto related companies, just on
19:25
Speaker 4: the basis of sort of reputation or not liking them,
19:28
Speaker 4: and that this was a wrong thing and that it
19:30
Speaker 4: had to be stopped. And so you know, there was
19:34
Speaker 4: put in place a change so that you know, regulators
19:36
Speaker 4: couldn't consider reputation risk when they're assessing banks. Banks have
19:41
Speaker 4: a lot of reasons why they legitimately had to have
19:45
Speaker 4: concerns about banking with these crypto companies. One of the
19:48
Speaker 4: with them is just how onerous it is to do
19:50
Speaker 4: the anti money laundering checks. This is a system that's
19:53
Speaker 4: designed to get around the regulated financial system. It has
19:57
Speaker 4: been used by criminal and illicit funds. So now they're
20:03
Speaker 4: almost being pushed that you have to bank crypto. If
20:05
Speaker 4: you're not, you're somehow debanking. You're doing this illegal and
20:09
Speaker 4: sort of almost like a First Amendment the kind of thing.
20:11
Speaker 4: On the other front, there is this real concern that
20:14
Speaker 4: some of the rules that have traditionally applied to the
20:17
Speaker 4: financial sector, like the US has always had this concept
20:20
Speaker 4: of the separation of commerce and banking. In other words,
20:24
Speaker 4: we don't want Walmart to also be a bank because
20:26
Speaker 4: then somehow they're going to you know, prioritize their suppliers
20:30
Speaker 4: and their customers over their competitors. Stable coins are going
20:34
Speaker 4: to be allowed to be issued by a lot of
20:36
Speaker 4: tech companies, or at least the private tech companies, and
20:40
Speaker 4: so you know, this is sort of these traditional rules
20:43
Speaker 4: are just being scrapped in the interest of helping the
20:46
Speaker 4: sort of crypto industry. And so yeah, I think for
20:49
Speaker 4: the big banks and for little banks, it's sort of
20:51
Speaker 4: a concerning development development.
20:53
Speaker 3: Okay, Tangia.
20:54
Speaker 2: Is there a concern in Washington that the financial system
20:56
Speaker 2: is going to be a bit hard to control as
20:58
Speaker 2: a result of this or is that just not a
21:00
Speaker 2: voice that you hear very much when you're talking to people.
21:03
Speaker 1: Not quite the voice I'm hearing in Washington. But either
21:07
Speaker 1: former regulators on both sides, folks who work at the
21:10
Speaker 1: agencies under different administrations, academics researchers all point to the
21:15
Speaker 1: fact that it is increasingly becoming concerning that by at
21:20
Speaker 1: the same time deregulating and welcoming less traditional access to
21:25
Speaker 1: the financial system, and that includes crypto but also thinking
21:28
Speaker 1: about FinTechs that are trying to get access to bank
21:31
Speaker 1: charters and making their positions in that way, as well
21:35
Speaker 1: as a reduced workforce, meaning the ranks of regulators who
21:39
Speaker 1: are actually day to day trying to evaluate how banks
21:43
Speaker 1: have tie ups with FinTechs and crypto firms, what that
21:46
Speaker 1: looks like, and other potential novel activities that are around
21:50
Speaker 1: the corner that are not yet known. There's concern about
21:53
Speaker 1: altogether that spells potential trouble. But they'd say it's too
21:57
Speaker 1: soon to say whether a christ is imminine or not.
22:00
Speaker 1: But the signs based on previous crises and the ways
22:03
Speaker 1: that the administration, the pace of the administration is moving
22:06
Speaker 1: with its effort is trolley.
22:08
Speaker 2: I mean, as a final thought to you, Christine, I
22:10
Speaker 2: mean anyone who pays any attention to these different eras
22:13
Speaker 2: of banking regulation basil and the domestic changes and rules.
22:18
Speaker 2: I mean, the process can seem insanely slow, but I
22:22
Speaker 2: guess you'd argue it has to be slow because it's
22:24
Speaker 2: so complicated, and we know the cost of making a
22:26
Speaker 2: mistake of moving too quickly could be very high for
22:30
Speaker 2: all of us when it comes to the financial sector.
22:33
Speaker 2: You know, you think about that process and then you
22:36
Speaker 2: think about the way this administration does things. I mean,
22:38
Speaker 2: it's not a good fit, is it.
22:40
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean this is an administration that likes to
22:43
Speaker 4: do things quickly and have quick results, and the pace
22:46
Speaker 4: of financial regulation and sort of supervision of you know,
22:50
Speaker 4: important companies takes time. It takes effort, it takes you know,
22:54
Speaker 4: a methodical approach, and that's not really the way things
22:59
Speaker 4: are being done. Oh there is, you know, I think
23:01
Speaker 4: a reason to be concerned that the approach being taken
23:04
Speaker 4: at some point will regret it.
23:07
Speaker 2: We've gone a little bit into the weeds, and there's
23:09
Speaker 2: probably still plenty that we don't understand. The lesson of
23:13
Speaker 2: experience is that in a few years time something terrible
23:15
Speaker 2: will happen. And I wish that we'd understood at least
23:17
Speaker 2: one of the things we've discussed today better. But in
23:20
Speaker 2: the meantime, you've been very good guide to Katango and Christine.
23:23
Speaker 3: Thanks you very much.
23:24
Speaker 1: Thanks for having us, Thank you.
23:31
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to Trump Andomics from Bloomerg. It was
23:33
Speaker 2: hosted by me Stephanie Flanders and I was joined this
23:36
Speaker 2: week by Christine Harper and Katanga Johnson. Trump and Nomics
23:41
Speaker 2: is produced by Samasadi and Moses and with help from
23:45
Speaker 2: Amy Keen and special thanks again this week to Rachel
23:48
Speaker 2: Lewis Chrisky and Dashelle Bennett. Sound design is by Blake
23:53
Speaker 2: Maples and Sage Bowman is head of Bloomberg Podcast and
23:57
Speaker 2: please help others find the show and enjoy it, rate
24:00
Speaker 2: it and review it highly wherever you listen