While You Were Working - March 7 - SmartBrief

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While You Were Working – March 7

White House details Dodd-Frank rollback plan, WikiLeaks bombs on CIA, SNAP starts to vanish while Arsene Wenger wishes he could

2 min read

Modern Money

Julian Assange of WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange - Photo credit: Carl Court/Getty Images

The White House clarified how Dodd-Frank will be defanged

Mark Calabria, the chief economist for Vice President Mike Pence, laid out the relatively small role Congress will play in the rollback of financial protections that is expected to take place during the Trump administration. Calabria said the political appointees installed at places like the Federal Reserve, the SEC and the CFTC are the ones who will do much of the heavy-lifting via renewed guidance. It is important to remember that during the crafting of Dodd-Frank, Wall Street lobbyists clamored for lawmakers to leave the specifics of new rules up to the regulators, rather than write them into law. For the most part, lawmakers capitulated and left the specifics up to the regulators. That decision means Dodd-Frank is about to be defanged, without being repealed.

The Fed seemed to take flak for doing its job

For the second day in a row, there was a headline that seemed to express frustration/surprise about how the Federal Reserve has successfully done its job. Financial stability is a goal of the Federal Reserve. Why is everyone flummoxed when it does things to reduce volatility and promote financial stability?   

WikiLeaks dropped more bombs on intelligence agencies

WikiLeaks did another data dump; this one detailing how intelligence agencies like the CIA and NSA have the capability to hack devices like mobile phones and Samsung TVs to spy on consumer/citizens. The CIA and NSA revelations are concerning, but not altogether surprising. However, one thing is starting to become verrrrrrrry interesting. WikiLeaks’ Twitter profile features a three-word motto: “We open governments.” That is all well and good, but isn’t it interesting that WikiLeaks is capable of hacking gazillion-dollar spy agencies like the CIA and the NSA, but it can’t quite muster the capability to hack into the tax documents of President Donald Trump? Hmmmm…   

SNAP’s appeal vanished

Shares in SNAP declined another 9.8% today. It’s as if someone programmed the stock to look great for a set period of time … and then disappear.

WYWW Appetizers

  • Bloomberg says we should love Laguardia airport. Who knows? Maybe Bloomberg and Tony Reali are onto something.
  • I found out Winnie Cooper grew up about 10 minutes away from where I did. Doh!
  • Today’s second leg of the UEFA Champions League matchups ended exactly like the first leg: Bayern Munich 5, Arsenal 1. Real Madrid 3, Napoli 1.