12/3/22 - Weekend Listening from Intercontinental Exchange
Our guest this week: Deputy U.S. Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo
Ninety-nine years ago, when the New York Stock Exchange celebrated its first Annual Tree Lighting in 1923, Andrew W. Mellon found himself in the third year of his record eleven-year run as the 49th Secretary of the Treasury.
Mellon would serve Presidents Harding, Coolidge and Hoover during his long tenure. His principal focus was reforming the tax laws after World War I. He argued that lowering tax rates on top earners would generate more revenue for federal coffers. He succeeded in realizing a substantial reduction in the national debt.
Many Secretaries of the Treasury make multiple visits to the NYSE. Donald Regan accompanied President Reagan here in 1985. Nicholas Brady is the architect of our system of market-wide circuit breakers. Paul O’Neill rang our Opening Bell to restore the stock market right after 9/11. Steve Mnuchin paid a visit in 2018 during the Trump Years. I’ve missed many, I’m sure.
On Wednesday, the same day Santa eluded stormy skies -- sans Rudolph -- to celebrate the NYSE’s 99th Annual Tree Lighting, the 78th Secretary of the Treasury, Janet L. Yellen, arrived for a roundtable with listed company CEOs under the auspices of the NYSE Institute. The agenda was focused on inflation, supply chain, trade, consumer spending, Russia, and China.
The topic of crypto didn’t come up, but it was front-and-center earlier that day at the New York Times’ DealBook Summit, where Andrew Ross Sorkin’s interview with Sam Bankman-Fried was the Main Event. In the runup to that tête-à-tête, Sec. Yellen told Andrew that “crypto is an industry that needs to have adequate regulation, and it doesn’t.”
Her message was echoed by her #2, Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo, who sat down with us recently at our ICE Fixed Income Forum in the Board Room of the NYSE. We’ve turned that fireside chat into a standalone episode of “Inside the ICE House.”
“The key for us is making sure that we create a regulatory framework for crypto that is flexible and able to deal with the changes that not only happen to crypto, but in various innovations that are happening in the financial sector,” Deputy Sec. Adeyemo told me and our audience. “Ultimately, we think innovation is a good thing for the financial sector because it reduces costs for consumers and improves efficiency. But the key is to make sure that we're doing it in a manner that's consistent with our other goals, which include protecting consumers, investors, financial stability, and preventing illicit financial flows.”
Hear more of Dep. Secretary Adeyemo’s wide-ranging comments in this week’s episode.
The view from Washington:
Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo at ICE’s Fixed Income Forum In a special live episode recorded at ICE’s Fixed Income Forum held at the New York Stock Exchange, Wally Adeyemo, United States Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, renewed the 230-year connection between Washington and Wall Street. Wally discussed Treasury’s plan for growing the economy while, at the same time, projecting U.S. economic power. He offered a readout on his recent meetings with global finance ministers and previewed the G-20 meetings in Bali, Indonesia.
If you’re on a smart phone, all of our Inside the ICE House podcast episodes are available wherever you get your podcasts, including the Apple Podcast App, Spotify, and Stitcher, and other audio platforms. Feel free to reach out to me with any feedback about our show, or suggest any guests for future episodes.