Update 357 — Ex-Im Bank Reauthorization; Bizarre Bugbear of Incoherent Opposition If ever there were a government program a Trump administration could love, it would be the Ex-Im Bank. It finances American trade and jobs and supports critical industry, including national defense contractors, doing so at a profit to taxpayers. Yet, to run the Bank, …
Update 355: Democrats and Rural America as Trump Gives Farmers Crumbs, not Cake Last week, the Trump administration announced a $16 billion aid package for farmers in an effort to bail out those affected by the continuing trade war with China. But the bailout sop may not be wooing rural Americans. Per Bill Gordon, vice-president …
Update 352 — Wall St. Regulators Face Music of House ‘18 Class at HFSC Hearing Tomorrow Today, we mourn the loss of Alice Rivlin, founding director of the Congressional Budget Office and a “decathlete” of high-level public office. Her steady hand and even temper weathered multiple administrations and several financial crises, both local and national. …
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Update 349 — Today’s Leveraged Loan Market: Animal Spirits or 2020 Recessionary Canary? The leveraged loan market may not sound like a factor in the 2020 elections, but 18 months before the 2008 election, leverage was already off the dial, Wall Street was booming, and no one predicted the economic or electoral consequences. Odds that …
Update 345 — HFSC Megabank CEO Hearing:Private Custodians of Public Systemic Risk The CEOs of the nation’s biggest financial institutions will meet on Capitol Hill tomorrow for the first time since the financial crisis for a House Financial Services Committee hearing. The purpose of this unusual gathering is to hold the firms these CEOs lead …
Update 332 — The BB&T/SunTrust Merger: Bank Consolidation Gains, Thanks to S. 2155? Virtually every major sector and industry in the American economy has seen increasing concentration and reduced competition over the last several decades and banking is no exception. Trump era deregulation has accelerated this trend and last year’s S. 2155 and its implementing …
Update 329 — Access to Financial Services:Survey of Public Banking Bills in Congress Before long, the winter will lift and we will see a thousand flowers bloom in the marketplace of policy ideas over the spring, with the first official presidential primary debates to follow in June. Among the most far-reaching economic policy proposals surfacing …
