I would like someone to explore with Mr Warsh why he thinks the economic impacts of AI are within the Fed’s remit but the economic impacts of climate change are not.
Smith’s question about insurance almost got there but didn’t quite.
Asked about his inaccurate prognostications before the Global Financial Crisis about the subprime mortgage market and the stability of Wall Street, Warsh won’t admit he was wrong.
Say what you will about Randy Quarles, when asked a similar question during his hearing, he offered a mea culpa.
ELIZABETH WARREN: Did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?
KEVIN WARSH: Uhm, we try to keep politics if I'm confirmed out of the Federal Reserve
WARREN: I'm just asking a factual question
WARSH: I believe this body certified the election
WARREN: That's not the question I'm asking
Yes, I think it was a credible theory *at one point.* They’re pretty clearly carrying out the president’s will *now.* And that’s the biggest obstacle to finding an off-ramp.
My only quibble with his presentation is that he suggested someone at the DC USAO is freelancing. The President has been pretty clear he supports their investigation.
Financial regulators need to be able push back against the harmful short-term interests of politicians.
As I’ve argued before, it’s untenable for the Fed to be independent for some purposes and not others.
Either the Fed is structurally independent or it isn’t.
www.yalejreg.com/nc/agency-in...
With his penchant for suits, ties and sweater vests, Federal Reserve chair nominee Kevin Warsh doesn’t share the rumpled look of many of the Silicon Valley entrepreneurs he calls friends. But they still count him as one of their own. “You wouldn’t be hanging out with us if you were as normal as you claim to be,” Palantir CEO Alex Karp told Warsh on a podcast in 2022. If confirmed by the Senate, Warsh wouldn’t just be the wealthiest Fed chair in history, he would also be the most tech-savvy and the closest to the tech-bro community to ever sit in the office. Warsh’s connection to Karp and other titans of Silicon Valley such as reclusive PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, Yahoo founder Jerry Yang and prominent venture capitalist Marc Andreessen go back decades — to college at Stanford and to investments made alongside some of them beginning soon after Warsh resigned as a Fed governor in 2011.
Kevin Warsh ran a tech-focused VC fund for 15 years and counts Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen and Alex Karp among his friends. No wonder he's an AI evangelist.
@steveliesman.bsky.social and I wrote on what it would mean to have the first tech bro Fed chair. www.cnbc.com/2026/04/20/f...
![U.A.E. Asks U.S. for a Wartime Financial Lifeline --
WSJ
Summary by Bloomberg Al
• The United Arab Emirates has opened talks with the U.S. about obtaining a financial backstop in case the Iran war plunges the oil-rich Persian Gulf state into a deeper crisis, U.S. officials said.
• U.A.E. Central Bank Governor Khaled Mohamed Balama raised the idea of a currency-swap line with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Treasury and Federal Reserve officials in meetings in Washington last week, the officials said.
• Emirati officials haven't made a formal request for a swap line, which would give the U.A.E. central bank inexpensive access to dollars to support its currency or shore up its foreign reserves in case of a liquidity crisis.
By David S. Cloud, Alexander Saeedy and Nick Timiraos
04/19/2026 16:03:42 [WSJ]
(Wall Street Journal) -- WASHINGTON -- The United Arab Emirates has opened talks with the U.S. about obtaining a financial backstop in case the Iran war plunges the oil-rich Persian Gulf state into a deeper crisis, U.S. officials said.
U.A.E. Central Bank Governor Khaled Mohamed Balama raised the idea of a currency-swap line with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Treasury and Federal Reserve officials in meetings in Washington last week, the officials said. The Emiratis emphasized that they had so far avoided the worst economic effects of the conflict but might still need a financial lifeline, the officials said.
The talks highlighted the U.A.E.'s concern that the war could inflict major damage on its economy and its position as a global financial hub, depleting its foreign reserves and scaring away investors who once saw it as a stable and secure place for their money. The conflict has damaged Emirati oil-and-gas infrastructure and shut off their ability to sell oil using tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz, depriving it of a key source of dollar revenues.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:kdgcvfaickr7turpo6suzbqp/bafkreie5wxtma4enb4c46vo6hkqup5f4rc43hhwarcyaqzw3zmscfffony)
U.A.E. Asks U.S. for a Wartime Financial Lifeline -- WSJ Summary by Bloomberg Al • The United Arab Emirates has opened talks with the U.S. about obtaining a financial backstop in case the Iran war plunges the oil-rich Persian Gulf state into a deeper crisis, U.S. officials said. • U.A.E. Central Bank Governor Khaled Mohamed Balama raised the idea of a currency-swap line with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Treasury and Federal Reserve officials in meetings in Washington last week, the officials said. • Emirati officials haven't made a formal request for a swap line, which would give the U.A.E. central bank inexpensive access to dollars to support its currency or shore up its foreign reserves in case of a liquidity crisis. By David S. Cloud, Alexander Saeedy and Nick Timiraos 04/19/2026 16:03:42 [WSJ] (Wall Street Journal) -- WASHINGTON -- The United Arab Emirates has opened talks with the U.S. about obtaining a financial backstop in case the Iran war plunges the oil-rich Persian Gulf state into a deeper crisis, U.S. officials said. U.A.E. Central Bank Governor Khaled Mohamed Balama raised the idea of a currency-swap line with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Treasury and Federal Reserve officials in meetings in Washington last week, the officials said. The Emiratis emphasized that they had so far avoided the worst economic effects of the conflict but might still need a financial lifeline, the officials said. The talks highlighted the U.A.E.'s concern that the war could inflict major damage on its economy and its position as a global financial hub, depleting its foreign reserves and scaring away investors who once saw it as a stable and secure place for their money. The conflict has damaged Emirati oil-and-gas infrastructure and shut off their ability to sell oil using tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz, depriving it of a key source of dollar revenues.
Probably Treasury not Fed
Commodities markets/CFTC are the Ag Committees' jurisdiction. Current Ranking Members are Klobuchar and Angie Craig (both could be in different jobs next year).
Senate Banking/House Financial Services could have some claim to jurisdiction, meaning Warren (unless Sherrod Brown wins) and Waters.
It continues to amuse me how conservatives set a trap for themselves with NRA v Vullo.
One of the big conservative grievances against Biden was that his administration jawboned Facebook and others into removing COVID-skeptical and election misinfo content, but SCOTUS tossed that case because there was no proof the admin caused censorship.
Here, Bondi and Noem gleefully admitted it.
There's a *lot* going on here, but I'm struck by the irony of Roberts taking umbrage at EPA officials' public statements.
Just 2 years later, in upholding Trump's Muslim travel ban in Trump v Hawaii, Roberts wrote that Trump's bigoted public statements weren't relevant to the rule's validity.
Scott Bessent says that “in their heart of hearts” Americans feel good about the economy, questioning what they’re telling surveyors amid negative sentiment data.
Democrats planning to run in November's midterm elections have been advised not to antagonise pro-AI campaign groups that have amassed more than $300mn to fight for the industry's priorities. The warnings by top party consultants, corroborated by people close to four different campaigns and party strategists speaking on the condition of anonymity, come despite internal polling for Democrats showing widespread public support for tougher AI rules.
Waiting for “popularist” consultant groups like Searchlight and WelcomePAC to say anything about the issue dominating polling these days, AI
www.ft.com/content/7529...
Roberts wrote the memo in 1983 for the Reagan White House amid questions over whether to renominate Volcker.
“The President cannot appoint ‘acting’ officers in the face of statutes requiring Senate confirmation, in the absence of an emergency situation.”
www.reaganlibrary.gov/public/digit...
Quite the timing coming on the same day Justice Sotomayor apologized for her remarks about Kavanaugh’s Vasquez Perdomo concurrence.
bsky.app/profile/chri...
Imagine the reaction if one of the liberal justices launched a broadside against conservatism.
A remarkable tirade in this moment in particular, as this administration shreds the Constitution on a daily basis.
Ah, so some kinds of “diversity” are still allowed at universities.
Regulators could keep capital in the banking system, ensuring that it supports lending and strengthens the economy.
Instead, they're letting banks go on a stock buyback spending spree, diverting capital from where it's actually needed.
www.ft.com/content/67d4...
At the same time that it asks for data on opaque private credit firms, the Treasury Department is gutting the office that should be collecting and analyzing this data:
bsky.app/profile/grah...
Trump administration ends lease for consumer protection bureau's headquarters, records show reut.rs/3Q2StDs
Even more irrational to make this threat when SCOTUS is about to make next-to-impossible for Trump to remove Powell from the Board. It’s both an empty threat and a counterproductive one.
The graceful off-ramp here is to just drop the probe and let Powell leave when his term expires.
Pirro's prosecutors make surprise visit to Fed hq construction site, are turned away. Doesn't look like Pirro is backing off to smooth Warsh's confirmation. www.wsj.com/us-news/law/...
No-one:
Literally no-one:
Scott Bessent: "I wonder what the hit to global GDP would be if a nuclear weapon hit London."
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Civil libertarians, crypto advocates, and conservatives have for years complained about financial privacy and so-called "debanking."
There are some legitimate issues about privacy and access, but it would be nice if some of them spoke out against this particular weaponization of the banking system.
Secretary Bessent defends the administration's proposal to enlist banks into a surveillance dragnet collecting customers' citizenship information.
But he can't justify it on its own terms. Instead, he pivots to talking about terrorists, which we have an existing system to identify and address.
Bessent dismisses the threat of climate change and melting ice caps:
"As we all know, the natural habitat for the Earth is actually water."
Recall that DOJ was arguing CFPB's funding structure is only permissible in years when the Fed is making a profit.
So, the CFPB would have been illegal last year but legal again this year. It would have been a very strange-indeed, absurd-decision by Congress to structure an agency that way.
Is it textualism to add two words that aren't in the original text?
