“At the end of the day, what has been shown is that the explicit guarantee extended to the globally systemic banks is now extended to everyone,” said Renita Marcellin, legislative and advocacy director at Americans for Financial Reform. “We have this implicit guarantee for everyone, but not the rules and regulations that should be paired with these guarantees.”
Washington, D.C. – President Biden’s recent budget proposal would bring billionaires and big corporations closer to paying their fair share in taxes. It would also disincentivize wasteful spending on stock buybacks.
Washington, D.C. — The House Financial Services subcommittee hearing today on digital assets should have been an opportunity to identify critical actions Congress and regulators should take to address the fallout of the crypto crash, but consumer advocacy groups fear the hearing will take a very different direction instead.
AFR and partners submitted a letter to the House Financial Services Committee in opposition to the TABS Act.
AFREF and Demand Progress Education Fund attended a meeting of the Market Risk Advisory Committee for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. There, AFREF/DPEF staff gave remarks on digital assets, including recommendations to the Committee regarding research and analysis into proper regulatory oversight of the digital assets sector. Recommendations included research into cybersecurity risks associated with crypto platforms and crypto derivatives, as well as a review of due diligence processes conducted by the CFTC and other regulators when CFTC registered entities involved in digital assets are acquired by another firm.
As the Federal Reserve prepares new capital rules for American banks, Wall Street is rolling out its misdirection and bad arguments – as it has for much of the past decade – about why they should not be required to steel themselves against a crisis or downturn. And once again, regulators and Congress must be prepared to ignore their histrionics and strengthen capital requirements.
AFREF joined two letters – one to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Department of Treasury, and one to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) – urging the Biden-Harris Administration to do more to relieve medical debt for tens of millions of people. The letters, signed by more than 60 organizations, include specific executive actions the administration can take to address medical debt.
The gravity of what will be a landmark Supreme Court case involving the funding of independent agencies has become increasingly apparent to observers of the judiciary. Numerous media reports have highlighted how the case, aimed at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, threatens to upend the funding for many federal agencies, above all the Federal Reserve.
In fact, says Carter Dougherty, the communications director of Americans for Financial Reform, the EU pushback against capital requirements is its own kind of subsidy.
AFREF and Demand Progress Education Fund submitted comments to the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) in response to the agency’s request for information regarding the risks, limitations and purported benefits of blockchain technology (including regarding central bank digital currencies), to help inform the government’s research and development agenda on blockchain. The submission raised concerns about the technological limits and risks of blockchain as used for both financial and non-financial applications, as well as a variety of risks, and urged the OSTP to take a more balanced and sober look at blockchain in view of these limitations.