While You Were Working - July 12 - SmartBrief

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While You Were Working – July 12

Strange days at the FDIC, a new nominee for the CFTC, and a nothing burger speech from the new chair of the SEC

3 min read

Finance

FDIC headquarters

Strange days at the FDIC ... (Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images)

Programming note: WYWW is taking a break for a summer vacation and will be back in action on Monday, July 24.

Strange timing and the FDIC

President Donald Trump’s nominee to be chairman of the FDIC has withdrawn his name from consideration. Jim Clinger says the same family matter that caused him to step away from government service in March has gotten worse and so now he doesn’t think he can dedicate himself to a job as important as the boss of the FDIC. If that is the case, then I wish him and his family the best.

Buuuuuuut… the timing is a bit odd. I mean, the day after Randal Quarles is nominated to be Vice Chair, Clinger bails? A speculative observer might wonder if Clinger wasn’t quite on board with the direction the FDIC is aiming to go now that Quarles is coming on board.

A bummer about Brummer

The Trump administration is set to nominate Russ Benham to sit on the CFTC. Benham has served as an aide to Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow. I am sure Benham is a fine nominee, but I was hoping Trump would do the same thing he did with XXXXX and re-nominate former Obama nominee Chris Brummer. Brummer doesn’t have the Captiol Hill experience Benham does, but he has serious policy chops. Plus, Brummer would bring a more global perspective to regulation and is just an overall entertaining dude who would have been fun to cover.

Fun with headlines

This one might as well say: “All cookie jars should remain unguarded, toddler says”

This can’t be good for business

When you are the CEO of a security firm and your identity gets stolen to a degree whereby your government decides to declare you individually bankrupt, that can’t be a good thing. And what makes it worse for Alf Goransson, the CEO of Securitas, is when the public finds out that the hack was perpetrated in March and he didn’t find out about it until this week. Ouch.

WYWW Appetizers

  • Now this fine is big enough to make it a legitimate story.
  • Now this speech from new SEC boss Jay Clayton is what I call a “nothing burger.”
  • But Janet Yellen actually did say a few interesting things.
  • Imagine owning a business where you earned $244 million in one year and it really didn’t matter if you were as good as your competition.