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grahamsteele.bsky.social
graham steele
@grahamsteele.bsky.social
3.1K followers 900 following 680 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/
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grahamsteele.bsky.social
It’s not a hypothetical concern. In this paper I discuss the time that Russia approached China about further destabilizing the US economy by dumping US treasury and agency debt during the 2008 financial crisis.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
The role of U.S. sovereign debt as the global reserve asset and safe investment also creates exposures between governments. China’s significant holdings of debt issued by the U.S. housing-focused government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, made them “gravely concerned” about the fate of the GSEs during the Global Financial Crisis and required U.S. officials to keep their Chinese counterparts apprised of GSE bailout and reform efforts.301 It later came to light that Russia sought to coordinate with China to begin selling GSE debt, thereby exacerbating the crisis and raising the costs of the U.S. fiscal response.
January 18, 2026 at 7:52 PM
grahamsteele.bsky.social
The Secretary suggests maybe the markets *want* a more politicized central bank.
KRISTEN WELKER: Well, let me ask you because Axios reported that you were not happy about DOJ’s investigation, that you told President Trump as much. Axios writes, “a perturbed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told President Trump late Sunday that the federal investigation into the Federal Reserve Chair made a mess and could be bad for financial markets.” That’s according to two sources familiar with the call. Is that accurate? SEC. SCOTT BESSENT: You know what, Kristen? I’m not going to discuss my conversations with the president. But if I said that, I was wrong. Financial markets, stock market went up, bond yields went down. So the markets are the ultimate arbiter of over whether the Fed’s independence is being impugned. And bond yields went down. I can tell you we had two of the best bond auctions that we have had in months for U.S. treasuries. So the market is looking beyond this. And again, maybe the market wants some transparency from the Fed.
January 18, 2026 at 6:38 PM
grahamsteele.bsky.social
I don’t know the history here, but it seems to me that having a different FOMC chair and Board chair would create its own set of institutional legitimacy issues for the Fed.
January 13, 2026 at 9:58 PM