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graham steele

@grahamsteele.bsky.social
3.6K followers 1.1K following 1K posts

Assistant Professor, UNC School of Law. Teaching and writing about financial and corporate law. Former Assistant Secretary, US Treasury Department & Democratic chief counsel, Senate Banking Committee. law.unc.edu/people/graham-steele

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Reposted by graham steele
Philip Bump @pbump.com · 9h
I think I speak for everyone when I say “It is good the Yankees lost” and also “haha Yankees”.
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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 14h
Or, in the specific bank hypothetical they use, the bank could argue kids would be harmed if they aren't bailed out.
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Gil Durán @gilduran.com · 21h
“Democracy has been hailed as, like, the holy grail for the last couple hundred years, but democracies are inefficient,” said the crypto billionaire. “If you get a benevolent dictator, it’s actually extremely efficient." Hmm, where have I heard this before? www.nytimes.com/2026/10/01/b...
nytimes.com
Inside a Billionaire’s Paradise With Crypto’s Most Powerful Ex-Convict (Gift Article)
Changpeng Zhao, jailed in the United States for a financial crime and pardoned by President Trump, is now living a gilded life in the United Arab Emirates.
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CJ Fogler @cjzero.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
One handed catch in the end zone for Efton Chism III, Pats take the lead back
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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
The purported logic of this statement is truly baffling. Powell, who has protected the Fed independence's from President Trump's political pressure, should demonstrate the Fed's independence by resigning in response to President Trump's political pressure? What?
President Donald Trump’s chief economic adviser called on former Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to leave the central bank’s board after an internal report cited management failures in the renovation of its headquarters.

“I think that it’s time for him to move on and to respect the independence of the Fed,” Kevin Hassett, head of the National Economic Council at the White House, said on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures when asked whether Powell should resign.
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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Go Heels
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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
"The plaintiffs are suing to restore visitation rights and ask a court to force the county to disgorge the hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits it has made from video calls." www.nytimes.com/2026/09/30/u...
nytimes.com
Families of Inmates Fight Against Jails That Profit From Visits
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Roosevelt Institute @rooseveltinstitute.org · 02/10/2026
The National AI Charter Act draws on financial regulation as a model. @grahamsteele.bsky.social recently wrote about the important lessons to be learned from banking, and that we'll need much more to ensure democratic control over these powerful technologies.
rooseveltinstitute.org
Financial Crises Teach Us That AI Self-Regulation Must Not Replace a Broader Regulatory Framework - Roosevelt Institute
Graham Steele looks to lessons from financial regulation to examine whether self-regulatory organizations can help govern AI—and where democratic oversight must take the lead.
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Jeff Stein @jeffstein.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
News - Trump is set to attend another dinner at his resort for the biggest buyers of his meme coin You can probably get in to see the president for $1 million Trump has pocketed $635 million Investors down +$4 billion on Trump crypto www.washingtonsun.com/whitehouse/t...
washingtonsun.com
Want Dinner With the President? Buy His Meme Coin.
The $Trump meme coin is offering buyers a new "exclusive" opportunity to meet the president.
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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I don’t know, I like to think if I were one of the six people who cleared the way for this debacle I might take some time to reflect on it. And maybe even consider changing my position on the constitutionality of capital punishment.
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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
More details on the hearing prep process bsky.app/profile/jame...
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Chris Rugaber @chrisrugaber.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Sen. Elizabeth Warren statement on the IG report on the Fed's building project doesn't hold back:
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Reuters @reuters.com · 30/09/2026
Watchdog finds deficiencies but no Fed misconduct in Powell-era renovation project reut.rs/3U26pzI
reut.rs
Watchdog finds deficiencies but no Fed misconduct in Powell-era renovation project
The Federal Reserve's Inspector General on Wednesday said it found no grounds for a criminal referral or administrative misconduct tied to cost overruns in a US central bank renovation project that had drawn ​scorn from President Donald Trump and an investigation of former Fed chief Jerome Powell.
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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
During the first Trump administration, Lael Brainard played the role of dissenting voice at the Fed, voting against rules or orders 23 times in 3 years. Barr has already matched her total in less than 2 years. www.yalejreg.com/nc/agency-in...
Even when the VCS role was filled in the first Trump Administration, the Fed returned to its pre-crisis ways, working with the Treasury Department and Congress to roll back aspects of the Dodd-Frank Act reforms—an approach known as “regulatory tailoring.” The lone dissenter during that period was Governor Lael Brainard, who cast 23 dissenting votes to the Fed’s proposed and final rules and merger approvals from 2018-2020. Those tailoring changes contributed to the eventual failures of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and two other large banks in 2023. Brainard would have to respond to the banking stress from her new position as the director of the White House’s National Economic Council, President Joe Biden’s chief economic policymaker.
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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
The Fed today voted to weaken its bank stress testing regime. I disagree with the substance of the rule, but I want to focus on Governor Barr's dissenting vote. By my count, that's 14 dissents of the 47 rule or order votes taken by the Fed this year. No one else is anywhere close.
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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
So is this an antitrust violation or no?
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Bloomberg Law @bloomberglaw.com · 30/09/2026
The Treasury Department must prove to a federal judge that it is distributing $289 million Congress pegged for community lenders despite its assurances in previous court filings that the money will go out the door.
bit.ly
Treasury Must Show Judge $289 Million Sent to Community Lenders
The Treasury Department must prove to a federal judge that it is distributing $289 million Congress pegged for community lenders despite its assurances in previous court filings that the money will go out the door.
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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
For the second person, Schmitt is the chair of a subcommittee. Subcommittee staff are (at least) part-time committee staff but work for the individual member. So basically, they're likely both personal staffers. (Doesn't mean they necessarily came up with the idea in the first place.)
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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
So many possibilities. In my experience, committee staff will at times seed questions to members for high-profile hearings, but they're usually well-vetted. Not infrequently, members will cook up their own lines of questioning without running them by committee staff (not for lack of inquiry).
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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I walked my former boss into one or two uncomfortable/briefly embarrassing hearing moments during my Hill career. It feels terrible and I still remember them. And yet, they were nowhere near as much of a debacle as this line of questioning. Yikes.
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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
More specifically, Iran uses *crypto* to fund terrorism around the world. But it’s issued by a company that the Commerce Secretary is invested in so they’re probably not going to do anything about it. www.wsj.com/finance/curr...
wsj.com
Exclusive | Senate Investigation Finds Rampant Use of Tether’s Stablecoin by Iranian Regime
Wallets sanctioned over Iran ties overwhelmingly dealt in Tether’s USDT stablecoin, according to Senate Democrats.
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Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · 28/09/2026
arstechnica.com
Another court rules Kalshi sports bets aren’t “swaps,” says states can crack down
Kalshi's defiance of state gambling laws may be headed to Supreme Court.
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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I've come to believe the role of finance is under-theorized in the recent neo-Brandeisian framework. There's been some focus on asset managers and private equity, but less on investment banking and syndicated lending driving consolidation and other concerns raised by the antitrust school.
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The Wall Street Journal @wsj.com · 28/09/2026
Exclusive: Citigroup has tapped crypto company Coinbase Global to help the bank’s big clients take stablecoin payments from customers.
on.wsj.com
Exclusive | Citi Expands Digital-Assets Footprint With Coinbase Partnership
Coinbase, the largest U.S. crypto exchange, will provide the digital rails enabling the bank’s corporate clients to make payments with stablecoins.
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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Old Glory's issues aren't new. Its CEO testified before the Senate in 2025 about so-called 'conservative debanking.' Old Glory was *already* under a consent order with state and federal regulators from 2024. One senator asked about that ... and blamed the regulators. www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/...
Senator RICKETTS. Mr. Ring, your bank was one of many that was issued a consent order by the FDIC in recent years; is that correct?

Mr. RING. Yes.

Senator RICKETTS. Would you describe your relationship with your regulator to have been collaborative or more combative?

Mr. RING. I think it has gotten better recently. In fact, a great regulator at the FDIC, Joe Meade, who spent 30 years there, recently left, retired. Invested in our bank and he’s now on the board. And I think that has helped. But they, they definitely do not make it easier to be a new and
growing bank; right?

Senator RICKETTS. Well, I see my time’s up, Mr. Chairman. But I do want to just wrap up by saying, again, my experience in the financial services field was that when you had regulators that had a relationship with the regulated community, that actually helped them do their job to find the bad actors. And we all have an interest in really bad actors that are in our
industries. And that when you take an approach where you weaponize Government, it’s actually bad for the regulatory scheme in general because players or, you know, companies who are good, that are trying to stay in business and actually follow the rules are discouraged because the regulators are acting in a political manner.
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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Old Glory was promoted by right-wing media as an alternative to big banks that had gotten too woke. It looks like that model hasn't worked out. (It's not the first anti-woke bank to stumble. Another one, GloriFi went bankrupt.) nypost.com/2025/02/07/b...
nypost.com
This fledgling bank is looking to profit as Wall Street giants push to ‘debank’ conservatives
Officials there tell On The Money that they’ve seen a significant upswing in business following Trump’s broadside where he called out JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and Bank of America’s Brian Moyn…
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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Regulators had notified Old Glory it was having issues and requested a plan to address its capital problems. The bank... just didn't respond. (That is a huge no-no.) You can find the full enforcement action here: orders.fdic.gov/s/press-rele...
OLD GLORY BANK, ELMORE CITY, OKLAHOMA (“Bank”), being a
SIGNIFICANTLY UNDERCAPITALIZED insured depository institution as that term is defined in section 38(b)(1) of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act (“Act”), 12 U.S.C. § 1831o(b)(1), and Section 324.403 of the FDIC’s Rules and Regulations, 12 C.F.R. § 324.403, based upon the Consolidated Report of Condition and Income of the Bank as of June 30, 2026, also known as the Call Report, which shows its Leverage Ratio to be 2.69%, and having received a NOTICE OF INTENT TO ISSUE A SUPERVISORY PROMPT CORRECTIVE ACTION DIRECTIVE (“NOTICE”) detailing the actions which will be required to be taken by the Bank and/or the proscriptions which will be imposed on the Bank pursuant to section 38 of the Act, 12 U.S.C. § 1831o, and section 308.201(a) of the FDIC’s Rules of Practice and Procedure, 12 C.F.R. § 308.201(a), AND THE BANK HAVING FAILED TO FILE A RESPONSE TO THE NOTICE PURSUANT TO SECTION 308.201(c) OF THE FDIC’S RULES OF PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE, 12 C.F.R. § 308.201(c), the FDIC hereby issues this SUPERVISORY PROMPT CORRECTIVE ACTION DIRECTIVE pursuant to the provisions of section 38 of the Act, 12 U.S.C. § 1831o, and section 308.201(d) of the FDIC’s Rules of Practice and Procedure, 12 C.F.R. § 308.201(d).
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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
On Friday, Trump regulators brought the hammer down on Old Glory, an 'anti-woke' bank founded by Ben Carson, Larry Elder, and country singer John Rich. Old Glory is classified as 'severely undercapitalized' and regulators have restricted its ability to grow. www.americanbanker.com/news/old-glo...
americanbanker.com
Old Glory Bank is 'severely undercapitalized,' FDIC says
The Republican-led bank, which touts itself as "pro-America," has struggled to turn a profit. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Old Glory failed to respond to a prior warning about capital defi...
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Mike Zaccardi, CFA, CMT @mikezaccardi.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Is an Agentic Bank Run Coming? AI assistants are about to auto-sweep cash from 0.1% checking accounts into 5% yields. If everyone adopts them, banks lose their cheap deposit base... risking a systemic crunch. Torsten at Apollo .. I use $BOXX
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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
There was a coffee shop in DC that used frozen coffee as the ice cubes in its iced coffee. Highly recommended. (I'm not remembering the name but it was at 14th and T. I'm pretty sure it's no longer with us.)
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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
You can probably guess the two DC Circuit judges who are in the majority without even looking.
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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Of course, the fact that the Commerce Secretary has financial ties to Tether probably doesn't hurt. One wonders what sort of advocacy is going on behind the scenes between the administration's Tether advocates and the skeptics. www.icij.org/investigatio...
icij.org
Tether: a $200 billion crypto company you can’t look inside
Its USDT crypto token underpins a trillion-dollar market, but cryptocurrency giant Tether won’t answer questions about its ownership.
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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Very strange for the US government to be promoting the potential usefulness of stablecoins, including as potential buyers of US Treasuries, when the largest stablecoin issuer continues to raise so many red flags.
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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Private equity investing in law firms? What could possibly go wrong.
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Bloomberg News @bloomberg.com · 24/09/2026
The US Treasury said it will purchase up to $6 billion of longer-dated government debt on Thursday.
bloom.bg
US Aims to Buy Back Up to $6 Billion in Longer-Dated Treasuries
The US Treasury said it will purchase up to $6 billion of longer-dated government debt on Thursday, in line with the first such operation under Secretary Scott Bessent’s expanded program to stem the recent rise in borrowing costs.
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Rotten Tomatoes @rottentomatoes.com · 23/09/2026
All-new trailer for Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim's 'You Can See Everything.' The Elizabeth Holmes documentary is in theaters on October 16.
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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
For @rooseveltinstitute.org, I wrote about the idea of AI industry self-regulation. I argue that regulation is fundamentally about power—who has it, how they use it, and who benefits from it. That means the public must be the ultimate decision-maker about the present and the future path of AI.
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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
There's a term for an investment of money in a common enterprise that creates an expectation of profit through the efforts of others.
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Bob Burgess @bobburgess.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
"The price moves were only part of the story. The tokens were also tied to a series of business plans involving World Liberty and the projects behind them. Many of those plans never materialized." www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
bloomberg.com
Trump’s Crypto Venture Got Rich While Big Promises Fell Short
Donald Trump Jr., Chase Herro and a group of their business partners descended on Manhattan’s Jazz at Lincoln Center concert hall last year to promote an expansive vision for World Liberty Financial, ...
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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
> @semafor.com www.semafor.com/article/09/2...
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More Perfect Union @moreperfectunion.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
BREAKING: Kalshi is asking the CFTC to allow margin trading on its platform, which would let users gamble with borrowed funds. www.cnbc.com/2026/09/22/k...
cnbc.com
Kalshi asks CFTC to allow margin trading on its platform, letting users buy with borrowed funds
It's the latest move by the company as it and other event contract exchanges seek to gain greater participation by institutional traders.
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Taniel @taniel.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Crypto is going to dump $30 million to sink Sherrod Brown, per: www.nytimes.com/2026/09/21/u...
nytimes.com
The Crypto Industry Targets Sherrod Brown of Ohio, a Top Democratic Senate Candidate
Angry after the defeat of a major crypto bill last week, the industry is planning to spend $30 million against Sherrod Brown in Ohio.
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Taegan Goddard @politicalwire.com · 22/09/2026
Bill Pulte Scrutinized Mortgages of Todd Blanche politicalwire.com/2026/09/21/bill-p…
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Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
I wrote this at the time and think it holds up well, based on Graham's excellent summary of the key points backofmind.substack.com/p/regulation...
backofmind.substack.com
regulation is the scientist, supervision is the monster
SVB, considered as a specific case of a general feature of systems
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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Agree completely. This was how I put it at the time... home.treasury.gov/news/press-r...
Much of the post-mortem examination of recent events in the banking sector, particularly of the SVB and Signature failures, has focused on institutional mismanagement and supervisory failures.  But blaming these two factors—the individual firms’ inadequate risk management and the lack of effective supervisory oversight of liquidity and interest rate risk—is both true and insufficient.  Regulation also plays a vital role.  Regulation is the mechanism that the banking agencies can use to impose and enforce requirements that are substantive, standardized, and transparent.  Appropriately calibrated regulation establishes clear expectations for supervisors and enforcement staff and provides them with institutional tools to take action against noncompliant firms.
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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
What frustrates me is that recent supervisory changes--MRAs, safety and soundness, etc--are likely going to make the issues about risk aversion and escalation worse, not better. I understand that's the agenda, but the cognitive dissonance of using this review as justification is a bit too much.
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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Indeed. You may recall that BPI put out a blog saying the enhanced LCR wouldn't have made a difference. Then the Yale Program on Financial Stability pointed out their analysis was wrong and BPI had to issue a correction. And yet here we are, still litigating it, apparently.
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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
After having read the report, there's nothing that changes my assessment. The documented disagreements are mainly about tone and emphasis. No allegations of inappropriate political pressure. Nothing about focusing too much on climate. Focused more on absolving Quarles than indicting Barr.
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Chris Cook @chriscook.news · 21/09/2026
A big new story from us: a big new leak means that we can put numbers on the scale of A7 -- the Kremlin's huge money-laundering machine. $6.9bn laundered through the international banking system via SWIFT, with $1.1bn sent to StanChart alone. www.ft.com/content/3848...
ft.com
Kremlin-backed forgery scheme moved $6.9bn through global banks
FT finds thousands of Russian payments handled by Standard Chartered, Citigroup and other international groups in vast leak from inside fintech A7
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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I should add that the report concedes a point that's incontrovertible: the 2018 legislation and "tailoring" regulations weakened rules applicable to banks like SVB. The report treats this as unfair "framing," but many of the more stringent rules would have led to earlier supervisory intervention.
On its face, this was a factual comparison between two regulatory regimes. [Board Staff 1] nevertheless regarded the framing as consequential. Because EGRRCPA and the ensuing tailoring rules had deliberately reduced the requirements applicable to certain firms, asking what would have applied in their absence would necessarily produce a list of additional requirements to which SVB might otherwise have been subject.
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