This Week in ESG and Impact Investing

  Yellen beings with the recently signed Executive Order by President Biden. She states, “digital assets have grown explosively reaching a market cap of $3 trillion last November from $14 billion just five years prior.” As a student at American University, I find it shocking that this was the first time anyone this big in government has given a speech at my university. Usually, we are overshadowed by our rival Georgetown, but Secretary Yellen made an impact on the students of American with her speech on the future of cryptocurrency.   Certain cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin have remained volatile, but with USD backed stable coins the application of Central Bank Digital Currencies could be successful. Yellen stresses the importance of responsible innovation guided by the governments six policy objectives: • Protect consumers, investors, and businesses • Safeguard financial stability from systemic risk • Mitigate national security risks • Promote US leadership and eco...

On April 8, 2022, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen discussed digital assets and regulation at American University’s Center for Innovation. She started with the executive order signed by President Biden mandating the creation of a government approach to cryptocurrency. Yellen noted that digital assets have grown from a $14 billion to a $3 trillion market cap in five years. Digital Currency Market Cap In her talk, the Secretary highlighted a number of factors: o  Recognizing the role that technology played, she stated that the broad adoption of the internet paved the way. Smart phones are also one of the reason digital currencies have been able to grow so rapidly. Number of Internet Users o  Disintermediation is a key function of digital assets like cryptocurrency. We have not heard much, at least by banking regulators, concerning the role cryptos play in eliminating middlemen and banks from transactions. o  The role blockchain plays in facilitating peer to peer transactions...

On July 13, the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs met in open session with the Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Honorable Janet L. Yellen, for“The Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress.” I attended this hearing and this blog post shares my reaction as well as some analysis. Despite the fact that the hearing was supposed to be about monetary policy, the Senators mostly questioned Yellen about regulatory issues. Republicans have been pushing for widespread rollbacks of Dodd-Frank financial regulations, so this is not surprising. This regulatory theme was apparent from the beginning, with Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID), the Chairman of the Committee, asking Yellen to affirm that she believes Congress needs to act on some areas of financial reform and that the Fed would work to make suggestions to the Committee, both of which Yellen readily agreed to. The ranking Democrat, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), quickly responded b...

Why the  #FED  doesn’t care about Black unemployment. EllisonReport 12/22/2015 edition: New shifts in the GOP primary. Emerging differences among Democratic and GOP candidates on national security issues. How the political calculus might reshape (or not) in wake of trial, grand jury decisions. Federal education policy 50 years later. How recent interest rate hikes eviscerate already eviscerated African Americans.   Economist William Cunningham (@CreativeInv) talks about how the Fed doesn’t care about Black unemployment – but, has many tools at its disposal to take care of it.  Listen at:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/11yR9RGTdY5ccp5PyEhbjkRqgiKQJm34-/view?usp=sharing