While You Were Working - January 22 - SmartBrief

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While You Were Working – January 22

How the presence of Trump is changing international financial regulation, Kashkari keeps trying, clean renewables and corporations, and the smartest guy not in Davos

3 min read

Modern Money

Solar panels

Are Google and Amazon a threat to renewable power companies? (Philippe Huguen/Getty Images)

When “being” is more effective than “doing”

This is a great update on the status of Trump vs. The International Financial Regulatory Community. However, the update is that nothing has really changed. And one thing I question about the analysis of the future is that anything the Trump administration actually does will be responsible for any future narrowing of the mission by international financial regulatory bodies. In fact, Trump’s presence is enough. None of those bodies will try to be overly prescriptive because they know such efforts will simply be ignored by US regulatory bodies helmed by Trump appointees.

People forget that many of the rules international regulatory bodies craft don’t automatically become laws around the world. The rules are agreed upon by each country’s individual negotiators, who then head home and task domestic regulatory bodies with implementing them. In the case of the Trump administration, none of the negotiators from other countries believe US regulators will actually implement, much less enforce, strict international rules. So why bother crafting precise rules; keep it broad.

In this instance, Trump appointees being atop the various US regulatory agencies is far more effective than anything they might actually do there.

Great idea, bad timing

Minneapolis Fed boss Neel Kashkari is continuing his crusade to increase capital requirements at big banks. He is gonna lose the fight until at least 2020 and maybe 2024, but at least he is trying.

Corporations on a clean power bender

It looks like corporations are becoming an ever important customer for clean power generation companies. It makes sense because corporations like Google and Amazon are less likely to go bankrupt than a normal rate payer (and probably far less complicated to do a contract with!)

But nevertheless, a threat remains for clean power generation companies; one where such corporation build and manage their own power generation infrastructure and supply.

The smartest guy not in Davos

The World Economic Forum kicks off tomorrow and few people walking around the snow in Davos will be as insightful as a guy who isn’t even attending: Ian Bremmer. But if you still want to know what Bremmer thinks will be the most important aspects of this year’s Davos, here you go.

WYWW Appetizers