President Biden’s initial actions after inauguration included an order ending the decades-old practice of measuring rules in terms of dollar costs.  Seemingly small beer for a president facing a pandemic, insurrection, and so much else, this is a paradigm-shaking change to the construct of U.S. regulation with far-reaching impact on U.S. financial policy.  It thus drew rapid-fire conservative criticism about what they feared would be the subjective and political nature [...]

In this report, we expand on prior forecasts to assess broad financial-regulatory and structure issues under the SEC’s jurisdiction under what seems likely:  a Chairman Gensler.  His will be an activist SEC, one sure to throw broker-dealers, asset managers, and investment funds from the relative comfort of the last four years.  Mr. Gensler is uniquely focused on investment funds after writing a book on the topic and will surely accelerate [...]

Although Acting Comptroller Brooks’ tenure was never boring, he went out with a bang.  Finishing with a controversial charter approval and a sweeping interpretation, Mr. Brooks has really left a mark on the future of digital currency.  Indeed, as he left, he said that fiat currency will soon be a “thing of the past.”  But, for all of digital currency’s explosive power, none of it has yet come close to [...]