#Lummis

8 11, 2024

FedFin Assessment: Are Crypto’s Wins the Banks’ Losses?

2024-11-08T14:57:19-05:00November 8th, 2024|The Vault|

One of the more striking results of the election is the enormous win crypto firms got for their $135 million of Congressional-campaign spending: victories so far in every race it entered.  Much of this is due not just to crypto’s lure; instead, it reflects choices based not only on a candidate’s crypto sentiments, but also on the opponent’s vulnerability.  As a result, at least some of crypto’s luster could fade when Congress gets back to work.  However, Donald Trump campaigned on a pro-crypto platform, endorsing legislation such as the Lummis (R-WY) bill to create a “strategic reserve” for bitcoins…

The full report is available to retainer clients. To find out how you can sign up for the service, click here and here.…

31 01, 2022

Karen Petrou: CBDC’s Big Empty

2023-04-05T16:20:36-04:00January 31st, 2022|The Vault|

Anyone looking for even a scintilla of a clue buried in a hint of an intention in the Fed’s CBDC discussion draft hunted in vain for guidance on the most consequential strategic inflection point for the U.S. financial-services industry, the financial system, the global payment system, and even the future of money.  Once, we all would have had to wait for augers from the on-high Fed to see the fate the imperium decreed.  Now, the Fed still thinks it rules all it surveys even though it doesn’t.  Soon, it may find out the hard way that fast-moving companies crafting digital money care as little for the central bank’s wishes as they did for those of the media, hotel, and retailing magnates they have already supplanted.

This is not to say that we must necessarily have a central-bank digital currency.  As I noted in my book, a democracy must ensure privacy and competition in ways China, for one example, disregards.  Rather, it’s to say that the U.S. will not have a secure store of value or sound medium of exchange without a payment system on which the economy stands firm.  Payment-system finality, accessibility, ubiquity, and cyber-security are all at risk if the Fed cedes the CBDC field without first and fast establishing the new framework it knows we need.

Nor am I saying that CBDC is inevitable because stablecoins are a certainty.  Libra’s ignominious demise is ample evidence of the power regulators still have to set the terms of payment …

11 01, 2022

FedFin Assessment: Powell Sidesteps Many Challenges, Promises Much

2023-04-24T15:54:45-04:00January 11th, 2022|The Vault|

As promised yesterday (see Client Report FEDERALRESERVE66), we listened closely today to gauge the extent to which Chairman Powell faces a serious challenge to reconfirmation. At least as far as Senate Banking Members are concerned, he doesn’t. Although Sen. Warren (D-MA) and other Democrats lambasted Mr. Powell over insider-trading allegations and what they called the Fed’s unresponsiveness, all still were cordial and seemed generally to blame the problem on institutional failures, not the chairman. Sen. Menendez (D-NJ) called the Fed’s diversity policy “outrageous,” but also does not seem inclined….

The full report is available to retainer clients. To find out how you can sign up for the service, click here.…

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