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graham steele

@grahamsteele.bsky.social

2.9K followers 850 following 570 posts

Focused on the law & politics of finance. Currently Rock Center at Stanford Law School & Roosevelt Institute. Former Assistant Secretary, US Treasury Department & Democratic chief counsel, Senate Banking Committee. https://law.stanford.edu/graham-steele/

law.stanford.edu

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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 15d

With the US potentially coming to Argentina's financial rescue, I'm sharing my new paper on "Financial Statecraft."

It critiques the government's deployment of the banking system for geopolitical purposes and proposes reforms to rebalance public and private power.
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

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James G @orth.ca · 8h

Vladdy: "DAAAAAA YANKEES LOSE!"

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Razzball @razzball.bsky.social · 29d

Every team's announcer should have this energy "The Yankees? They're not a good team"

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Razzball @razzball.bsky.social · 4d

DAAAA YANKEES LOSE

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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 3d

KBJ observed in the universal injunction case that the government’s arguments amounted to a “catch-me-if-you-can” legal regime.

It’s a useful frame for understanding the administration’s general approach to legal compliance.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson interjected: "Your argument seems to turn our justice system into a catch-me-if-you-can kind of regime … where everybody has to have a lawyer and file a lawsuit in order for the government to stop violating people's rights.”

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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 4d

I had print reproductions of these two in my office at Treasury.

While a bit dated and gendered, they’re real treasures of New Deal art history.

Seymour Fogel’s “Security of the People”

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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 5d

Time to think about the next phase of climate finance now that these voluntary industry commitments have failed.

Bloomberg News @bloomberg.com · 5d

The world’s biggest climate alliance for banks has ceased operations, just four years after securing net zero pledges from many lenders

Bank Climate Group Formally Winds Down After Wall Street Exodus

The world’s biggest climate alliance for banks said on Friday it has ceased operations, bringing to a formal end a project that drew net zero pledges from many of the world’s biggest lenders just four years ago.

bloom.bg

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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 6d

I’m confused. So are we now in favor of the government pressuring tech companies to remove apps from the App Store?

Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 6d

This was done at the direction of Pam Bondi. The US government is now dictating what apps you can have on your phone.

The underlying threat here is if Apple didn't comply, they'd slap billions in tariffs on Apple products.

Alt text: Screenshot of a Fox News Digital article reporting that Apple removed the ICEBlock tracking app from its App Store after the Department of Justice raised safety concerns. The article states DOJ officials, under Attorney General Pam Bondi, asked Apple to take down the app, claiming it endangered law enforcement officers and shielded illegal immigrants. Bondi confirmed the removal in a statement, saying ICEBlock put ICE agents at risk and emphasized DOJ’s commitment to protecting federal officers.

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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 6d

Conveniently, the CFPB, which is apparently paying for it, is funded through remittance from the Fed not congressional appropriations.

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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 6d

How does this standard apply to Justices Alito and Thomas and their spouses?

Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney.bsky.social · 6d

JUST IN: DOJ suggests Judge Simon recuse from the Oregon National Guard case because he's married to @RepBonamici, who has vocally opposed the deployment. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 6d

Great @theamarareport.bsky.social piece on the dynamics of Fed independence in Congress, the courts, and financial markets.

The Fed needs to adapt to the changing environment, in both its approach to core responsibilities and responses to legal and political risk.

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Steele, the Stanford lawyer who also spent many years as a Democratic staff member in the Senate, says the Fed could have pushed back against Trump by using its own bully pulpit or taking a clearer stand in the Cook case.

In the past, the Fed has gotten itself into trouble “when it has not been willing to adapt to broader changes in circumstances,” including in the political environment, he says. “That probably should prompt them to think about the world that they’re really operating in now.”

graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 9d

The US could develop its own cheap, fast public payment rails. Instead, it’s threatening trade-related measures against Brazil for innovating.

Using financial statecraft to help incumbents continue squeezing out rents at consumers’ expense.

David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 9d

Tired: Trump is punishing Brazil because they sentenced his pal Bolsonaro for attempting a coup
Wired: Trump is punishing Brazil because their useful central bank payment system is squeezing out PayPal
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/29/w...

Brazil Has a New Digital Spending Habit. Now It’s a Trump Target.

www.nytimes.com

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Bob Burgess @bobburgess.bsky.social · 9d

“We find some of his arguments questionable, others incomplete and almost none persuasive.”

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

‘Questionable, Incomplete’: Wall Street Rejects Miran’s Fed Call

Federal Reserve Governor Stephen Miran may still hope to persuade his central bank colleagues that there’s a case for dramatic reductions in interest rates.

www.bloomberg.com

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The Economist @economist.com · 9d

“Stablecoins will bring more risks than benefits—and alternatives exist.” In a guest essay, an economics professor and Nobel laureate explains why these digital tokens may have been misnamed

A Nobel laureate on why stablecoins may be nothing of the sort

Payments systems must be built on public infrastructure, not speculative tokens, writes Jean Tirole

econ.st

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Perry Bacon @perrybaconjr.bsky.social · 10d

This was revealing. Worth reading. The basic demand is that Coates spend less time thinking/writing his true feelings and more time playing political strategist. Klein asks him over and over him to do Dem strategy; he says no, over and over. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/28/o...

Opinion | Ta-Nehisi Coates on Bridging Gaps vs. Drawing Lines

www.nytimes.com

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 14d

Bessent on Argentina: "The plan is as long as President Milei continues with his strong economic policies to help him, to bridge him to the election, we are not going to let a disequilibrium in the market cause a backup in his substantial economic reforms."

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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 15d

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Ivan the K ™☑️ @ivanthek.bsky.social · 16d

This is starting to look like the corporate crypto treasury "strategy."

Ivan the K ™☑️ @ivanthek.bsky.social · 16d

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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 15d

Remarkable response from the 28-year-old Deputy Director of ICE on whether she’s qualified for the job:

“At the end of the day, what really makes anybody qualified for any job?”

Another of Noem’s deputies is Madison Sheahan, 28, who just six years ago was the captain of the rowing team at Ohio State University and who now is the deputy director of ICE. “For the most part, every entity in ICE reports to me,” Sheahan told me in an interview at ICE headquarters in southwest Washington. Sheahan is broad-shouldered with a punishing handshake. She told me she doesn’t sweat the controversial parts of her job. “I understand that everyone wants to poke holes and say we aren’t perfect, and we aren’t,” she said. “But we’ll never know how much ICE prevented — the number of kids that we’ve saved and families that we’ve saved.”

She first began working for Noem pretty much right out of college, as a body woman and policy aide when Noem was governor. “She genuinely believes she was called to serve by God,” she said of Noem. They grew close enough to consider each other friends. Once, Noem invited Sheahan to run a half-marathon with her. When Sheahan asked her boss if she needed Gatorade about a mile from the finish line, Noem said “yes,” only to sprint ahead when Sheahan popped over to a hydration table. Noem beat her by about ten feet. “That really describes her,” Sheahan told me. “She’s gonna have fun. She’s gonna do her job. But she’s gonna win, too.”

Some ICE officials call Sheahan “Fish Cop” behind her back because of her previous stint running the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries in Louisiana. Sheahan knows there are people who think that, without any law-enforcement background, she isn’t qualified for a job usually occupied by veteran ICE officials. “I absolutely think I’m qualified for the job,” she told me. “Because at the end of the day, what really makes anybody qualified for any job?”

graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 16d

I don’t know if you saw this, but the OCC recently issued interpretive guidance that banks’ decisions to “de-bank” *conservatives* specifically would factor into their CRA evaluations.

They’re turning anti-redlining laws on their heads.

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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 16d

I’m in the process of writing a paper arguing the line between financial stability and “financial statecraft” has gotten too muddled over the years and needs clarifying/cabining. Doesn’t discuss Argentina, but the arguments are probably applicable.

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 17d

my question for ahmari: the federal reserve is subject to democratic control — congress can, whenever it chooses, alter the terms of fed independence. how and why is the unilateral authority of the president, exercised outside of rule if law, more democratic than congress’s legitimate authority?

Trump Must Lose the Second Bank War

Henry Clay understood what was wrong with the unitary executive theory back in the 1830s.

www.liberalcurrents.com

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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 16d

I’m skeptical of any material financial stability risks to the US from the situation in Argentina. It looks more like the administration helping a political ally.

Does the reference to swap lines imply involvement of the (ostensibly independent) Fed, which has no standing agreement with Argentina?

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 16d

there's been one book-length treatment of glass's life and career in this century and it does a poor job of situating glass in post-reconstruction virginia and makes no real attempt to synthesize the connection between his segregationist views and his crusade for financial reform

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graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 16d

As a financial reformer myself, it’s an uncomfortable truth that some (though definitely not all) of our nation’s most prominent finance skeptics were also pro-slavery/segregation.

See, eg, Jackson’s war against the Second Bank of the United States.

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emptywheel @emptywheel.bsky.social · 19d

Eagerly awaiting @ddayen.bsky.social's comment on NYT's claim that the agency Bill Pulte heads is an "obscure housing agency."

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/19/u...

Mr. Pulte’s power far outstrips his role as the head of an obscure housing agency. He has gained Mr. Trump’s favor by pushing mortgage fraud allegations against perceived adversaries of the White House, including Ms. James; a Federal Reserve governor, Lisa Cook; and Senator Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California.

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