🇺🇸 AMERICA IS DEREGULATING BANKS AND EVERYONE ELSE IS FREAKING OUT Remember 2008 when banks nearly destroyed the global economy? Yeah, America's basically saying "let's run that back" and loosening the rules that were supposed to prevent another meltdown. Trump's new banking cop, Michelle Bowman, is slashing regulations faster than you can say "financial crisis." She's freeing up $2.6 trillion in lending capacity by letting banks hold less emergency cash. Wall Street is thrilled. Everyone else is nervously sweating. This gives American banks a massive advantage over foreign rivals. European and British banks are now begging their own regulators to ease up too, or they'll get crushed by their suddenly unleashed American competitors. Some banks are literally threatening to move headquarters to the US. Some are worried that this is planting seeds for the next crash. Ashley Alder, who chairs the UK's Financial Conduct Authority, pointed out this week that we're stuck in successive cycles of tightening bank rules after a crisis, then loosening them as memories fade and economic priorities shift, until the next crisis hits. Meanwhile, Michael Barr, Bowman's predecessor at the Fed, warned in a speech this month that periods of relative financial calm have repeatedly led to efforts to weaken regulation and supervision, with dire consequences like we saw in the 2008 global financial crisis. The UK will probably follow America's lead. Europe is hesitating. And everyone's watching to see who blinks first in what might become a race to the bottom of who can have the riskiest banks. Source: Financial Times