WhyDRS at Structured Finance Association's 2025 SFVegas

[JFWooten4]

Firstly, thanks to the community for voting me to represent the movement at our first "official" industry event. I know a lot of apes have tried (and sometimes succeeded) at getting into closed-door events like these before on an individual basis. Hopefully, this involvement feature can inspire increasing upcoming public media involvement and industry activism.¹

I say this because the vast swath of individuals I spoke with throughout the four days cared very deeply about (i) where I was geographically from and (ii) what organization I participated in. From Congressperson to writer-reporters, these two items never failed to come up, despite my extensive outward focus on what people do or why they do it. Thus, the community name in this case not only opened the door to further conversation when configuring my speaking role, but it also inspired back-and-forth between people there who largely never considered retail involvement in bond placements or structured products.

Further discussed in Taking Stock Ep. 63.

Tip

Much of the reflections and notes from the conference naturally delve into structured products, which are generally managed exclusively by big banks, hedge funds, and other intermediaries. From my point of view, it's practically the most centralized sector of finance, which is why I find it so interesting to study and plan to convert towards a more decentralized system accessible by anyone, not just the select few hired by these middlemen. Yes, deposit-taking institutions count as middlemen, and no, I do not plan on diving into extensive granularities over particular banking business models.

1 Topics from Sunday

As per the present placeholder above, there aren't any videos of event panels just yet.² Thus, my notes come from the panels I could attend, given the agenda³ often had multiple speakers discussing important topics at the same time. And, of course, miscellaneous conversations from cold intros will never have canonical web references.

1.1 Student-Loan ABS Outlooks

Since student loans are the assets that back a large sector of securitized products, recent activity from DOGE quickly emerged. In this panel, it was generally clear that Musk wants less federal grant money and more private student loans. Financial aid should stay in the private sector, according to their interpretation of Federal intentions.

Naturally, this development fuels the growth of their business since the industry exists by bundling together groups of student loans into investment vehicles with practically guaranteed payment schedules.⁴ Ignoring momentarily the quandaries of student loans, the panelists largely sold the asset class as a steadfast vehicle. However, I viewed this as a vehicle available only to a select few, as one panelist told a story about raising hundreds of millions of dollars from twelve investors.

These middleman institutions singlehandedly (albeit together) funded an education-bond securitization representing countless students who needed an extra few bucks to afford rising college investments so often deemed necessary by central employers. Aside from being generally non-defaultable, this offering was deemed "less risky" by the industry given its extensive diversification amongst (geographical) students. In another new product, a panelist talked about how they sold a riskier pool of "smaller" subscriptions from only eight investors.⁵

Lastly, the panelists collectively commented on the need to educate consumers about the operations of private student loans. They focused particularly on the Federal pause on loan payments under the CARES Act, a crisis relief platform not extended to private student loans. It was my interpretation of their general conversation and body language here that they saw nonpayment spike amidst "consumer confusion" (verbatim) over their payment policies, given the big banks offered no such relief.

1.2 Intellectual Property Securitization

This panel preceded a larger panel on music royalties. The panels generally tried to gloss over this topic for the later discussion, but they still covered many of the basics that interweave top artists with banking interests. It's apparently become more and more common to sell upfront future earnings from music royalties after David Bowie's turn-of-the-century bond offering.⁶

Afterwards, they murmured for a few minutes about how most new offerings rely on revenues from streaming services, leaning more towards mainstream artists with established cash flows therefrom. The conversation mentioned a select few middlemen I find cause for suspicion with,⁷ stating that revenues therefrom supported massive interest payments. Then the conversation turned to author royalty securitizations and royalties from (patented) drugs.

The former hit quite deeply as panelists framed book revenues as one of the oldest IP securitization targets, with extremely proven and reliable income streams from popular authors. It seemed to be one of the oldest schemes, and the speakers specifically highlighted the great potential of earnings from popular writers like Rowling. The wording throughout made it seem like these deals were sure bets so long as only the most successful and proven artists sold their licensing rights.

As for the latter, one panelist seemed quite specialized in drug bonds. I interpreted their discussion as simply adding a tax on each dose manufactured based on the IP, which then funded interest payments to investors. So perhaps we can imagine half the royalty for a treatment going to inventors in the form of upfront capital after publication, whereas the remainder pays back the loans against future earnings.

Note

Throughout the flights and transit associated with this extensive trip, I was reading more on Sam Insull, the electricity pioneer highlighted in TS#16. Namely, in Insull at 27–31, Dr. Forrest McDonald highlights how bankers acquired all the patents from Thomas Edison early in the development of central power stations. Thus, during a critical period of utility expansion, it was practically impossible for Edison to fund growth operations because of the "leaden collar" of bankers stubbornly holding the patents necessary to employ his own inventions. According to note 14 in the chapter, it took Insull and others gathering thousands of small stockholder proxies to force Morgan and his associates to relinquish corporate control.

The panel wrapped up with a general sentiment towards splitting up "rights ownership" and revenue from operations, with parallels given in other securitizations where property income was separated from real property. This concept of dissociating an idea and its business implementation from the proceeds therefrom quite directly reminded me of the early Edison experience with Morgan, whereby the "right" to operate was held hostage by the arbiters of capital—middlemen who chose to cease credit extension in the hope of profiteering off IP.⁸ Should we really extract the fruits of one's own labor into the pocketbooks of today's financial elite?

1.3 Clean Energy Property Taxes

The next panel was on Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy loans. This was my first time hearing about this asset class, which came about in Recession-era clean-energy State legislation incentivizing borrowing for green energy. Basically, the loan gets attached to the property itself rather than its owner, and interest payments are direct property tax payments to localities rather than a lending institution.

I've seen similar structures in my father's work on municipal bonds, so the first question in my mind was how the funds were distributed from banks (by way of the trust). Unfortunately, we need that intermediary middle-vehicle in contract-based offerings as a conduit for receiving and disbursing bond proceeds.⁹ The panelists here said that it's been getting harder to work with the trust fund in releasing budgeted funds.

I think this could be because of the pressing refinancing risks highlighted by the panelists. Their largest concern was a new lower mortgage rate paying off the loans earlier than anticipated, so most deals include a high prepayment penalty. This made sense to me, but it also sounded like the property owner was forced into a long-term liability at suboptimal conditions.

Aside from financials, I found it interesting how each C-PACE was represented at the State level as a revenue bond, under the general tax code exemptions therefor. Thus, issuances include some "UCC [debt] filings" to comply with local lending regulations when adding a priority tax lien against the underlying estate. Since the payments get wrapped into general tax obligations, I found the vehicle practically bulletproof since failure to pay results in the same governmental takeover as interconnected basic property taxes.

1.3.1 Addendum

Interestingly, in a subsequent trip out to ski country discussed in the last DUNA meeting (did anyone record that lol?), I noticed that my Dad's centralized Wells Fargo directive meeting calendar included a requisite discussion on the PACE instrument. Apparently, this was not related to any specific pending deal, but rather it was a generally internal educational vehicle. The presenter in question seemed to be an in-house WF counselor who'd done some work thereon in a different branch of the bank (my Dad works in municipals, which are actually a crazy example of the upcoming point).

I'll base the majority of this analysis on my own experiences here, as I asked my Dad about PACE deals the evening after they attended this training meeting. He said he wasn't really familiar with the deals, vehicle, or every acronym (as again it falls outside his usual work). One such example of the latter particularly appalled me, ensnaring a Native American tribe with $50 million in county-government debt.¹⁰

In short, it's my interpretation of these events and other public information that the PACE exemption largely serves as a perverse means of further centralizing our existing financial system. I'll approach this point from two high-level angles:

• Policymaking as a means to influence economic activity, and
• Hidden tax-code exemptions practically available only to select institutions.

For the relevant context of these points, I'll remind everyone that the first PACE bond emerged out of a California law passed by a hundred representatives (of 36,700,000 people) in 2008.¹¹ The legislation largely defers implementation to cities and counties, as is common with municipal or State-lien financing, later purporting to "increase local jobs[,]" "property values[,]" and "attractive financing option[s.]"¹² I think this makes sense given only a select few municipalities instigated early PACE programs, such as Berkeley's FIRST program (which facilitated 38 solar projects), while overall CA solar capacity nearly doubled from 2007 with over 10,000 new installations.

The conversation reminds me of an early discussion at the Syndicate with an SF startup integrating mass battery storage into utility networks for carbon-free consumption of potential photovoltaics. The ultimate question is who tax carveouts like these serve? Does it help innovators in the free market enabling consumption with lower costs, increased efficiency, and generation scalability like the industry as a whole naturally developed given sufficient time and R&D? Or do the terse, localized, and bureaucratic (policies go through local tax treatment and hence authorities) loopholes serve the select few money-lenders, prompting them to proactively educate employees on a secret business avenue enabled by monstrous amounts of plutocracy?

1.4 Bill Huizenga (R-MI)

In conversations during and after this panel, the Representative asked me to call him Bill, which I'll use colloquially here. Relevantly, Bill is the Vice Chair of the House Financial Services Committee, a group I've been eager to talk with for some years now. As the community knows, we had some further correspondence as collectively agreed, which I'm still waiting on follow-up from.¹³

At the start of the panel, Bill remarked on the astounding public press accessibility to the President, compared to the relatively silent first term. They gave the example of a walk to Marine One turning into a 45-minute press conference, a level of access and transparency previously unseen. I noticed a similar tendency when reviewing many of the media broadcasts of general Q&A sessions in the Oval Office with Musk.

Notwithstanding, Bill highlighted that Trump is quietly executing the Administration's important work "in the background" through the traditional hierarchical means.¹⁴ I found this interesting since, on one hand, we have a very outward and vocal leadership on partisan topics while, on the other, rests a steadfast motivation for implementing mundane but meaningful amendments in the background. I've always understood that Federal policies can take many Administrations to see effects from a former politician, and I wonder if the prominent narrative towards efficiency will now speed up bureaucratic reform within the President's term.

In discussing the financial sector and structured intermediaries broadly, Bill made a minor slight against Maxine Waters, remarking on her "hammering" against an industry. I specifically asked about this after the panel given her involvement with the infamous market study, and it seemed like any discussion there would uncomfortably dive into cross-party politics, which Bill didn't want to divulge. Super understandable, and personally very interesting to see one Representative's actions so broadly denounced, whereas I'd personally like to keep discussions circled around specific actions and tangible results.

1.4.1 Comments on D.O.G.E.

The first parallel Bill draws relates to the funding mechanism for Michigan State. As is common in some other states, funding shortfalls mean representatives cut allocations to public goods and services. There is no excess deficit spending, as Bill highlighted with a story about calling a school district and telling them they wouldn't receive full consideration for enrolled pupils.

Bill shares these events not to highlight excess frugality, but rather to emphasize responsibility and consequences of actions, as I understood their viewpoint. When embarrassing misallocations like this happen once or twice, the government learns to act prudently with its funds going forward, according to Bill. Thus, they generally supported cutting allocated funding to the extent that shortfalls emerged.¹⁵

1.4.2 Return to Office

Bill said Trump, Musk, and Bowser (D.C. Mayor) need to get workers back in the office. He first supported this position on the basis that there were "desolate" downtown businesses, and more workers in central offices would fill shops with spending consumers. I didn’t comment much on the relative absurdity of forcing people to consume what you think they should based on geographic considerations, as is a common viewpoint of certain centralized executives stressing the materiality of a physical meeting place.

But the next justification was a little more provoking for me and got at a core tenet of legacy digital labor, which I commonly find thrown as an excuse for synchronous, geolocated work. Basically, the prevailing argument (which likely came from a swath of sources other than Bill) presumed that at-home workers are lazy and can't be trusted to do good work. Bill didn’t explicitly say this, but he heavily suggested that at-home workers were basically constantly slacking off in most scenarios, which I saw generally agreed with throughout the rest of this room.¹⁶

Then, Bill asked the audience if anyone was still remote after COVID, at which point I could see myself and another gentleman raise our hands. Bill asked the other person how they could successfully work like that, and they replied that all their work was "easy to track" and thus simple to maintain accountability with through online reports. Bill generally agreed with these sentiments while making sure to highlight that it was not the norm, which I generally question—since why would anyone do work if it was not measurable in either results or deliverables?¹⁷

They didn’t call on me to explain our particular innovative decentralized working arrangements, and I didn’t see a pressing reason to bring it up in later discussion. While a majority in D.C. will likely hold this view for some time to come, I know we can eventually get to a more direct participatory democracy where physical presence isn’t a precursor to policy developments. Because, hey, it’ll take some time for them all to (ever) abandon the gorgeous meeting halls decked with so much historic significance.

1.4.3 Special Government Employees Generally

Naturally, following the discussion on Musk, Bill brought up the principal example of John Kerry, another special temporary government employee selected with substantial private accumulated wealth. I think Bill was referring to Kerry's recent work as a Presidential "Envoy for Climate" in the last Administration. But this position went on for a few years, and Bill said that special employees "only have 120 days" in Federal power.

Nonetheless, I found it interesting to see some precedent for the general unilateral "special" appointment of someone into a non-defined (semantically) Federal position. Much of Kerry's involvement from my perspective came from an extensive history of career politicking and public service, which I think we're starting to see a little bit of with Musk's public-facing work now. I recall the conversation a couple of months back about how a whole team likely manages his general social-media posts, as I've seen extremely commonly in the legacy central digital marketing space.

Bill also commented on this social presence, albeit more in the context of organizational work. They said that Musk transparently posts "everything" and commends general Federal openness. I agree with him on the latter part and by all means support government transparency, but I'm not so sure comprehensive transparency can coexist with hasty central coordination.¹⁸

1.4.4 Housing Policy

Bill cited concerns about increasing unaffordability for "under 150,000" annual income groups. I found that a telling and fun arbitrary cutoff line given the relative distance a great deal of Americans subsist with at amounts much lower.¹⁹ Unfortunately, the conversation never wandered into zoning thereafter, and I failed to bring up the zoning quandaries because it seemed less relevant than the concluding content below.

At this point, I'll mention that Bill was being "interviewed" by a panel questioner with extensive experience in the industry, although the name is lost on me without the agenda record. When she brought up the topic of housing subsidies, both of them agreed that these vouchers only exacerbate the affordability challenge, keeping home prices higher than ever before. This generally made sense to me since you're effectively rerouting taxpayer dollars into landlord or builder pockets.

Then, Bill told a story about a housing authority where local regulators were quite out of touch with both State laws and working people. In one instance, municipal council members tried to pass a new rule requiring rental properties to have a fire extinguisher in every room of a house. In later discussions therewith, the supporters and sponsors said the new rule should only cost a few thousand dollars a year to set up, which Bill reported as ridiculous given many tenants or owners needed just that much cash to get by.

Bill and constituents won that battle, but it sounded like it left a poor taste in his mouth, which only matured in a later tax story. Apparently, Bill had a property that occupied two shapes of land, and the State law said he only had to pay taxes on one of the segments. However, local collectors charged him for both sections, which prompted Bill to bring some lawyers to them for a chat.

There, the locality's representatives said they knew they were only supposed to charge for one section, but they were making him pay for both anyway just to get more funds, according to Bill. The logic he says they gave: that Bill would waste more money taking the matter to court per the pricey counsel than just paying the inflated rate. As I understood it, Bill agreed and just had to give in to what they wanted.

1.4.5 Final Reflections

All this seemed to tie into Bill's sweeping statement that the hardest aspects of an economy to "manage" are lumber, land, and labor. I'm quite unfamiliar with the first of these, but I certainly found it interesting to hear him speak of managing labor, almost as if people are unable to organize their own work. While this certainly wasn't something I explicitly heard Bill say, it is a relatively common perspective I've heard from politicians, especially in foreign dictatorial nations.²⁰

When I asked Bill about blockchain in front of the crowd, he focused on stablecoins and free markets dictating stability and value. The latter part circled around everyone giving digital accounts a legacy fiat value, which they then talked about in the context of illicit payments. Namely, from the joint email back, they told the story of other Representatives quite concerned about its uses.²¹

After the panel, I pressed Bill a little more on the investor protections piece so notably absent from many early crypto products today. Unfortunately, they didn't seem very interested in the relatively nuanced and industry-specific topic. I also probably killed my immediate chances of an earnest reply by referencing the Trump memecoin and its effect on naive Americans.

Overall, great to meet Bill and happy to find someone so expressly concerned about the community at large and their general interest over that of a taxing authority. Their story praising door-to-door campaigning showed a genuine interest and connection to the people, which I found extremely refreshing in an age of political billboards and picketing signs. Certainly, we'll have a great financial services policymaking team in the coming session with all our interests at heart.

1.5 Fiber-Optical Cable ABS

I was between this panel and some others, which led to a few great private conversations on the whole-business securitization front. Accordingly, I'll combine some of those sentiments with my brief original takeaways here. I think it's the best place to introduce the topic because there are only a select few industry participants laying out fiber cables.

My biggest takeaway from this panel was that these assets originate through large telecoms, which effectively make the sector a playground only for those barriers with connections. I saw this a lot in the whole-business option since you're effectively turning a corporate connection into a banking investment vehicle completely separate from traditional equity. They also mentioned the ability to diversify through separate regional loan pools on underlying cable infrastructure.

Frankly, I didn’t see how this benefited the telecoms any more than a direct investment, which could then be used to build new lines. Rather, it seemed like quite the roundabout way to raise funds for a large capital investment—a method that later places underlying ownership of the entire physical project at risk of default. The general equity model just made a whole lot more sense to me because various participants there told me about how the vast bulk of service costs come from the initial cable installation (over ongoing maintenance), which seems to me like what stock offerings were made for.

In the later Bloomberg discussion, it was strange seeing all these assets rolled up into a single "tab" for available fiber securitizations. Each individual offering had practically no isolated volume, and the technician there even showed me an industry-wide time-and-sale report (from private broker-announced transactions, discussed later) which had two trades in an entire week! Indeed, a number of attendees and panelists commented on how general deal flow slowed down this particular week exclusively because of the conference, and it was my interpretation that this had a change magnitude of 60% or more of all normal business originations, which traditionally require SRO reporting on the underlying component side Wednesday afternoons (coincidentally when the conference ended).

2 Topics from Monday

I arrived relatively early on Monday and had some hallway chatter before main panels started closer to 10. One such chat was with a mutual fund manager who generally pools together securitizations into products suitable for any individual investor. When I told them I was with a retail investor advocacy group, they seemed flabbergasted in awe because there exists effectively no support for retail in that market, according to their account.

Namely, the vast amount of intermediation stood out as the largest factor barring retail from the market. They commented on how a select few institutions have the complete power to dictate who participates or even accesses capital from their hands to start. Namely, practically everyone I've chatted with in the past few years recognizes and shares immediately that these firms pick and choose who gets to invest in their special securitizing deals given their privileged and compensated role as bookrunners.

This fund manager shared their experience particularly interacting with placement agents and securitizers, telling me how they act as sole dictators of offering allocations. Given the (relatively) small size of their funds with only eight figures, this person constantly had a very difficult time getting included in good offering allocations. And they commented that the assets are immediately marked up in the secondary market after the initial subscription.

Unfortunately, I've heard this story far too many times over the years here, and I think it's ultimately (one probably minor reason) why so many people flock here to work their way into the upper distribution management ranks of certain investment banks. Blockchain could solve all this by simply letting investors bid their demand on a transparent ledger, but that would require the market itself to determine interest rates, not a highly compensated team at one of these intermediaries. In discussions with a rating agency this morning, their platform's bond reps frankly didn't seem to understand the idea of blockchain or such efficiencies in the slightest.²²

2.1 Post-Election Analysis

This fireside chat generally revolved around perspectives from Karl Rove (R-White House) and Claire McCaskill (D-MI, Senate), whom I'll refer to as "him" and "her," respectively. The conversation largely revolved around Musk, and the more interesting comments from my perspective started with a general disdain for firing all the new people with "best and brightest" minds. This is because it was easier to fire new workers (or those who'd just been transferred) over seasoned government workers.

Firstly, this seems explicitly like a quandary of central employment and the litany of working protection challenges associated therewith (from the perspective of someone wanting to give other people money to do good work). They both framed these cuts as practically stunting the government by eviscerating its best youth and technical talent. More holistically, as someone with family in public-service positions, I've seen secondhand the entrapping motivation to "finish" an already lengthy public career (in the sense of working for the government) just to receive comprehensive retirement benefits.²³

But I suppose that is how bureaucracies work, right? It logically makes sense to me that a central group of individuals designs bureaucratic policies to protect their job security, and thus they lower the expected amount of ongoing contributions therefrom. Albeit that last inference has no backing and is likely generally false as the elder work harder and harder with their expertise, but then shouldn't they receive more just compensation by a meritocratic market rewarding results, achievements, and contributions themselves?²⁴

2.1.1 Executive Branch Transparency and Operations

Aside from wanting more experienced workers (at least in terms of government involvement), she seemed quite adamant about keeping Musk accountable, almost to the point of skepticism about their intentions. I think this is a relatively common minority view, and we saw it supported here in her critique of how efficiency workers value Federal contracts.

I personally find the new (to me) Federal Procurement Data System contracts fascinatingly revealing, albeit they all still leave some details to be desired. But even just a general record of Federal transactions with basic memos, amounts, and parties is a whole step ahead of many spending oversight schemas. It reminds me of Open Source Collective, and how you can sync financial applications to a trusted central server to display an authoritative centralized feed of purported monetary activity.

But despite this savings and subsequent public documentation, she says Senate bipartisan collaboration is getting much harder. I find this understandable since it can and does take considerable time to go through all these documents and research reports. She exemplifies this point with a story from early in her career regarding physical committee audience composition.

When she first entered government, listening groups were segregated by party, with Republicans sitting on one side of the room, opposed to the Democrats on the other side. Apparently, she introduced and passed major legislation just by asking the ranking chairperson to seat everyone in alternating-party order. It was precisely the little chatter with "opposing" seatmates during these committees that inspired the ideas for effective bipartisan policymaking—and she makes quite the point to express how happy she was with this result, given it was quite the ambitious organizational-change ask for someone so early in their career.

2.1.2 Foreign Policy Items

He supported a lot of the international intervention abroad, which I'm generally unfamiliar with and sort of spaced out around. Somewhat relevantly, she remarked on an unprecedented support for the Republican party, citing the most Republican support from the "bottom" 30% (economically) since 1960, a trend which was explained further in a panel below. She was also surprised by a 2:1 support for one party over another, mentioned in the context of a large amount of rural reliance on Medicare.

We've had enough conversations on the quandaries of insurance programs like these before, so I won't dive too deep into them here, since the speakers didn't go very deep either. It's always something I've found so conflictingly nuanced given the requisition of a middleman between daily economic affairs with low likelihoods, and I generally tend toward deferring to individual savings and investments over corporate bureaucracies. Perhaps we could see innovative policymaking in this space outside of government using her idea of interleaving dispersed and different members, which again led directly to successful education between the two groups, creating a new international policy bill.

At this point, the moderator suggested that there could soon be a failed Treasury auction for political reasons, which makes sense given the stranglehold the Administration has previously voiced over Federal Reserve control, as I understand it.²⁵ In remarks around some sort of offering windows, the moderator suggested that the President either needs to keep their mouth shut or let their opinion be known early on, especially when it came to a particular international affairs question. They interpreted the market as confused, stunted, and unhappy with certain recent actions and statements made wish-washily quite near a looming international fiscal deadline.

That last bit slipped a little past me, but I invite anyone to view the session recordings once they come out.²⁶ Luckily, they wrapped up with a chat on the debt ceiling, which I found quite interesting, as they framed it as a shared challenge given there's no budget in place for the next year's government. Moreover, enough spending has already occurred leading to interest charges over the "limit" so faithlessly respected given its impossibility, and I wonder if it really makes sense to centrally plan the ongoing operational budgets of such a vast and socially accountable system of organizing political oversight.

2.2 Diverse Geopolitical Macroeconomics Panel

This panel started with a veteran investment banker who talked for a really long time by themselves about nations acting in their self-interest at the expense of the collective global economy. Unfortunately, this is sort of the norm today because so many historically independent groups of people formed legacy walls between one another. Sometimes these developed over scarce resources, were introduced by incidental geographies, or emerged through violent conflict over physical dominance. In any case, I think and can refer to many who view the nation-state mode of human organization as well past its prime.

Namely, if we want to promote genuine creativity and innovation, then should we incentivize individual decision-making and problem-solving? I saw this perspective echoed by a principal from Barclays who reported fewer people entering the workforce, suggesting an impending overall economic slowdown.²⁷ But what exactly are these central analysts measuring? Because I certainly don't think it's individual productivity.

Rather, they keep their eyes on central results and organizations measured in the legacy system of value accounting maintained by today’s largest social organizations. Thus, they ignore entirely the grassroots work in communities like ours, which grows exponentially as we fight harder and harder for a better market of tomorrow—a new system that lets anyone participate, work, and prosper without the permission-based gatekeeping of yesteryear’s intermediaries.

2.2.1 General Financial and Policy Conditions

Next, a representative from S&P Global Ratings decreed that the long-term stable interest rate is at or slightly above 1.3%, which I found supportive of my views in the last subsection. Namely, it rang again the sounds of central banking, whereby everyone assumes that money on its own naturally requires annual expansion and "free" yields in "riskless" securities—an investment scheme that far too often comes at the expense of the working masses. Thus, I was skeptical of their subsequent comments and remarks from other panelists that the rate should and even could actually be slightly higher.

These are fantasy numbers pulled from their thin-air generation machines of faceless, amassed pooled loans, and I could hear that in their tone as they spoke of these returns as if they were simple and meaningless Excel numbers. But investment, policy, and work are more than fields in an unfathomably large spreadsheet of collated investments. They're meant to be the explicit definition of what we incentivize, create, and grow in a society that seems increasingly dictated by a select few asset managers who've captured practically all capital.

And to conclude, a speaker from Wellington Management talked about Reagan being the last President to reduce the amount of Federal regulations. This led to a discussion about Musk's goal to remove 10 lines of regulations for every new one added, and generally, these seem like good rule ideas given the excessive amount of legacy requirements in certain fields.²⁸ It'll be interesting to see how Federal Register items change these next few years, and hopefully, it will get more general public eyes on the immeasurable vast swath of rules presently propagated by our litany of central regulatory authorities staffed by taxpayers (rather than industry, e.g.).

2.3 Newscaster Steve Kornacki: A Decade of Trump in Policy

This panel specifically analyzed Trump's political efforts from 2012 onward, documenting what the speaker portrays as a fundamental shift in the Republican Party as the President's political career manifested. I find the journey itself historically relevant since only a select few national leaders of his caliber did not participate in much, if any, military service or prior politicking. Indeed, the latter point quite impressed me upon his initial win, as I would generally suspect that an incumbent with decades of Washington experience would be relatively favored among the populace to lead such a governing body.

But (thankfully) we live in a relatively more meritocratic society where ideas can stand on their merits, and individual objectives can and do excel ahead of historical deference. Not to say one way or another is better, but I do think the firmer idea of government by the historic governors cements any legacy corruption and hinders the adoption of new, innovative ideas from the outskirts of society. I've always felt myself in that corner-facing camp and thus generally favor political systems that give deference, time, and voice to the little guy, ignoring the immense present challenges of campaign financing, which seem so relevant in a capitalist-first values society.

2.3.1 Racial Trends

Steve starts by explaining how 2012 was a landmark victory year for Republicans, winning an immense portion of the white vote. This introduction comes into meaningful relevance quite soon, and it was painted as the peak of white GOP support with an unbelievably overwhelming dominance. Notwithstanding, this wasn't enough to win the election given other races identified by the speaker, which collectively overruled this single ethnicity to keep Obama in office.

He laments that Republicans' strategy had generally been to just win the white vote, so this defeat came as a massive surprise given their posterity at doing so. Accordingly, an "autopsy report" came out of the GOP in response thereto, highlighting a number of recommended reforms to ensure ongoing political success. Steve says Trump based his campaign and career largely on all these proposed fixes.

The core intent of this strategy meant attracting slightly fewer white voters while improving racial outreach. Indeed, Steve highlights that last year's 30% nonwhite Republican vote was the best ever and represented a historic voting diversity shift. More elementarily, he explains how this was the first time in decades when voters with four-year degrees leaned Democratic.

2.3.2 Education and Gender Changes

Steve mentions and documents a wide party-based gender gap since the 1980s, with women generally leaning Democratic while men tended toward Republicans. However, the higher female margins to Democrats flipped for the first time last year, with a low margin for women compared to a relatively constant high net male preference. Thus, we didn't see explicitly many men switching parties, but rather an increased propensity for female Republican voting for one of the first times in post-Nixon elections.

Moreover, he reports a lot of Republican progress in young and minority men, especially those without a college education. They exemplify this point by discussing how the Republican party had "forever" been the choice of the wealthy, whereas Democrats were more popular with the working class and labor unions. But this was the first year where Democrats took the overall $100k+ income vote, while lower incomes actually majority went to Republicans (and also again more working people).

Thus, Trump has facilitated huge shifts in conservative State votes, dissolving and replacing Democratic alignment in Massachusetts, California, New Jersey, and New York. All this led directly to winning the popular vote, which largely came in an election of unprecedented Republican support in these communities. Thus, for me and as inferred from Steve, the vote much largely reflected an increasing focus on policy and vision over and above traditional red-and-blue alignments.

2.3.3 Case Studies and Inferences

Steve believes these trends will continue, perhaps for decades to come, as the general campaigning and policymaking party ideologies shift to better reflect their new base of popular voters. To exemplify this point, he first talks about Osceola County, which Steve used as a definitive early indicator of election results during his live coverage. Given the vast Puerto Rican population therein, Trump's victory solidified their perspective on the disimportance of unrelated comments from campaigning work amongst diverse voters.²⁹

Moreover, continuing to focus on diverse ethnicities, he highlights how Republicans had practically their best voting outcomes from majority-Native-American counties in the past century. This popularity showcases a "flip" of the voting electorate from traditionally Democratic groups, according to Steve. With this level of fluidity in modern policymaking alignment, I've got to think we're up for an exciting time of genuinely productive bipartisan legislation furthering everyone's collective interests, at least while that collective is still in flux between shifting ideologies.

Steve ties this shifting voting alignment together by highlighting the small, wealthy county of Leelanau, Michigan. He shows how this town went from "hardcore Republicans" in 1988 to Democratic since 2020 and growing. And all this despite the vast concentration of bachelor's degrees (half the populace), a bountiful elderly population (with the 7th highest county median age), and an abundance of high-end wineries amongst the area's 93% white population. Normally, a town like this would support the Democrats, but Steve speculates that the large focus on abortion only resonated with wealthy traditional Democrats, as compared to Trump discussing larger cultural issues on nonpartisan platforms popular with young men.³⁰

2.4 Trends in Unsecured Consumer Credit

Most of my remarks here hinge on Ryan Callahan, who did a lot of cool work at institutions I admire in certain lights. I'll include remarks from some discussions we had after this panel, general sentiments across participants, and largely their (high-level, impersonal) perspective on the sector as a whole. Offhandedly, it's a rare treat to find the ten to twenty percent of people at events like these under the age of 30, although I do find myself working with the elder more commonly.

In terms of unsecured credit and associated card balances, Ryan said everything is generally calm and predictable. This came in addition to their comments that more and more people now demand loans given increasing living costs in recent years, which we all commonly understand doesn't always coincide with commensurate wage increases at certain central employers rewarding workers in fiat. Notwithstanding, it was exciting to see some community members highlight wins by working groups collectively negotiating a greater share of their productive wealth, especially for those not connected to equity investment ramps or know-how.

These sentiments seemed common amongst panelists, who made the sector sound exemplary, but Ryan shared some more intimate and personal concerns about the sector at large. Not least of which was the ongoing and systemic reliance on salespeople to interface with large investors, most often to structure a new offering exactly how an institution wants new assets to match their risk profile. Apparently, this is a very manual process where a client contact and intermediary handpick underlying debts to collate into the final securitization pool, with a largely interpersonal allocation of first-come subscriptions granted to central capital allocators.

To me, these weird specific institutional deals serve only to contort natural supply and demand for the individual underlying deals, which never make their way onto a tradable market for security interests. Moreover, specific requirements mean it can take months for salespeople to slowly affect new originations to satisfy the funding wants, even requiring up to a year of time to find enough piecemeal loans. Sound like the fastest, most efficient, or fairest way to get capital into the hands of those ready to deploy?

Caution

I've left some raw notes and shorter summary reflections from here until section 3.2 for the sake of personal working brevity. This has been quite a bit to type up, and I want to dedicate some more time to Syndicate work connecting the orgs. One day we can truly have an efficient universal securities market with the public policy so needed now!

2.5 EU Securities Regulations

I found this panel interesting because it touched directly on some of the challenges with local regulations which often contracted when touching investors across different jurisdictions. We can see quite recently the same challenge of local securities rules applied in state- and country-based offering exemptions harming investors. Thus, I found it interesting here that many duplicative rules created confusion, extra costs, and general gatekeeping to market access.

• New joint regulation to replace fragmented rules for securitizations
• Investor capital largely deployed to US projects which have their own compliance departments

2.6 Consumer Borrowing "Health"

This panel generally discussed the finances of people borrowing on credit, as was so common throughout the panel. I've gotten more intimately familiar with this experience in the last couple months having run out of fiat savings in various financial institutions. Honestly, it's been a refreshing experience feeling how many likely live simply waiting for the next asset deposits that will let me pay off some growing (but still current!) credit card bills.

Since the focus is on student loans, I'll give a due shoutout to @tehchives who has a skilled past of paying off their own educational debts exceedingly quickly. Not sure how much they want to dive into the matter, but the core of frugality they highlighted in speech and in action over years of financial choices ought be an inspiration for anyone trapped in material debts. So unfortunate how easy it is to slip into these pending traps when payments are so tightly coupled with credit, and a return to steadfast, prudent frugality sure seems a helpful first step to regaining financial independence.

• Say people are confused between federal student loan relief not applied to the private market.
• FICO rep talks about everyone's budgets spreading thinly while "yields tighten" despite strong payment maintenance and general employment.

2.7 Intrabank Systemic Risk Transfers

Significant risk transfers are a tool for moving potential credit liabilities from bank balance sheets to other enterprises. It was my interpretation of the chat that these trades occurred between banks, which seems to only coagulate the risks into a more systemic pending aggregation.

• Common in international banking regulations because it was needed for banks to be able to raise capital given Basel.
• Panelist talks about how they can rate bonds AAA high despite low issuer rating.
• When asking them about the risks and collateralization of central securities depositories after the panel, they say that really the only way to get protection is a single-name CDS against the major exchanges or clearing participants, up to the collateral fund limits of a couple hundred million. Legacy, Gillen, old lawyer says that it's a very systemic risk that is "too big to fail."

3 Topics from Tuesday

3.1 Macro Policy Plenary

This panel had a lot of representation of banking employees who work on policy, giving a nice broad-ish view from different but related corporates. It certainly seemed like a markedly different kind of job than the proactive work we do protecting actual investors, users, and issuers. Rather, I got the feeling that they were generally reacting to the "policy hands" of those above making new rules, attempting in all regards to minimize working compliance costs or activities.

• generally agree that it will be challenging to get legislation across the divided House
• suggest that DOGE will get less popular as (manual) gov services slow down, giving the example of it taking months to receive your tax refund

3.2 Evolution of Media

• In a panel with news influencers, they say they need to constantly push content across every possible different online platform.
• Publishers say they need to earn trust by speaking in their own voices, using an example of independent press calling out Biden's physical leadership limitations due to age while being largely attacked by the incumbent Administration.
• Jim VandeHei comments on need for journalism to freely report media to halt authoritarianism and protect questioning capitalism.
• They frame reporting as something you need to be passionate enough to work without pay while producing for the joy of it so the market can reward results.
• They comment on the quandaries of centralized social media policy and algorithms that serve the attention-maximizing business interests of these "publicly-traded companies" with a fiduciary duty to time-suck, and Jim says the only alternative is owning the content and platform yourself.
• Tara Palmeri comments on tech workers not even understanding their own algorithms, and Jim pushes back saying they understand—the whole intention is simply businesses maximizing dopamine and forming addictions to the platform.
• Tara says most thriving information has a bias, attracting mass online viewership.
• Jim agrees that the mainstream doesn’t get into the nuances or depths available for niche creators acting without central coordination.

3.3 Government-Sponsored Enterprise Reform

This discussion largely revolved around Fannie and Freddie, two semi-government institutions up for material amendment under Musk and Trump. Given the materiality of mortgage debt in expanding the American monetary supply, I appreciate incoming sentiments to bring these two institutions in line with a free market. Yes, that does mean I'll happily give up my first-time homebuyer discounted interest rate.

More holistically, I see no practical or egalitarian explanation for the home-interest deduction so common on U.S. tax returns. This policy, applied more generally across practically all debt under IRS treatment, serves only to distort the free-market competitiveness of equity financing (a method that requires skill, nuance, and tact) versus debt (which we can summarize in about three well-known central numbers). To get the personal items out of the way, I also believe people should be able to acquire their own homes using only their own accumulated savings and retirements, as opposed to the 30-year servitude contracts so common among central work hubs.

The panelists here were largely skeptical of political influence over either GSE, dictating their operative independence from the White House. I found this to be true in personal experiences attempting to use Stellar for their mortgage recordkeeping years ago by means of the Federal procurement system. Naturally, the panelists highlighted the specialized sector practices entrenched in GSE operations, which largely consist of at-will employees managed under the auspice of a private company so Congressionally endowed by Federal conservatorship.

If this veil of protection holds, as I've seen stand strong in Alpine and pre-Amtrak cases, then the most a White House representative could do is change top leadership, as Trump did with Pulte as Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency last week (and one of Musk's reliable engineers on St. Patrick's).³¹ I've studied how this played out in the past, in anticipation of the recent Commissioner changes, and I agree with the implicit panel view that this will be quite the bureaucratic structural undertaking for anyone brought in by the Administration—a monumental task, to say the least, with only the top-down influence afforded to America. Should the government still entertain central organization and oversight of private housing interests, especially in an age where capital is more and more mobile, to the behest of any discriminatory charges traditionally protected by the FHFA?

3.4 More Private Credit Growth

On this brief panel, speakers remarked on the "meteoric rise" in Private Credit issuance coming from the general economic conditions discussed earlier. However, the panelists largely framed the rise as being fueled by large private buyers. Namely, they saw growth coming from institutions purchasing securitized debt offerings (or wrapped components themselves) through the 4(a)(2) Exemption for private placements. This demand was then exacerbated by 144A inter-dealer offerings, combining into large market demand through gated institutions.

Both those technical nuances on securities laws relate deeply to the Rule 144 discussion in the last DUNA meeting. Effectively, they only let these big banks deliver the money needed to fund this growth of private credit markets, a reality I saw truthfully and firsthand with a co-panelist of years past. In short, they built a whole proprietary private marketplace application to exploit this expanding sector niche, which connects institutional investors, central underwriters, and aggregating banks into a single place with the expected 10% service fees of Wall Street.

I very vividly remember fuming in anger when I uncovered the full swath of inefficiencies this particular private company touts online as their "high-margin business model" because it serves only to separate investors from their hard-earned dollars. And that's how I felt throughout most of this panel, knowing the practical impossibilities of our own implementation of this model given strict policies enforced by these central banking institutions, which severely limit the transfer of meaningful funds from one person to another.

Modern financial systems should involve and benefit users like us, not aggregate and exploit the masses for the subjective profits of those closest to the Fed by means of their central employment. How we collectively tolerate their central and omnipresent control of the economy to date baffles me. And frankly, I think it's only a matter of time until practices like this cease solvency, which begs the question: what will happen to the largest sector of our workforce supporting financiers atop a castle of sand?

3.5 Whole-Business Securitizations

I was in and out of this panel due to hallway discussions with a team related to our panel, in preparation for upcoming work discussed by a co-panelist. Notwithstanding, the sentiments I did get from this panel were personally astounding. First, I'll explain some of the key elements the underlying institutions apparently look for when it comes to securitizing the cash flows of an entire enterprise.³²

Each of these factors fits under a wide umbrella I'd personally label "security." The panelists started off talking about a long, established history of business income (thinking in terms of decades). Then they dove into factors I'd assume any investor would consider: brand permanence, consumer recognition, and product certainty (of longstanding use or need).

Lastly, one speaker harped greatly on the "replaceability" of management to continue operating if the issuer stops servicing the securitized bond, and other panelists generally nodded in agreement. That was really a straw too far for me because it basically frames all the people in an organization as entirely replaceable cogs meant only to keep the entity functioning for the returns of shareholders. Except, in this case, the shareholders don't even exist, meaning workers can't even own a piece of the fruits they produce, as the entire longstanding corporation post-deal now serves to exclusively enrich the big backing institutions who found it competitive in the market.

Should these investment banks have the first claim to the "safest" deals available across the economy? Should their gatekeeping access to the public market allow them to singlehandedly profit off the most established enterprises we rely on each and every day? Or might we better serve the billions in need of quality equity investments by diversely distributing whole-business ownership and profit interests among all?

3.6 Backup Servicing Expansion

This panel covered a new and quickly growing niche designed to increase banking profits by lowering loan delinquency and nonpayment. The general idea is hiring someone to berate insolvent borrowers after the first organization meant to attain the cash due fails. One speaker commented that this is tough to do in-house without the requisite specialization of companies designed only to get money from strapped borrowers.

One reason, apparently, is the lengthy and specific process of filing UCC State notices for bad debts, apparently quite convoluted and something @LastResortFriend could comment on further. As I understand it, based on minimal conversation therewith, a legal process here designed to protect borrowers can protect anyone in an official court case against unpaid debt. Thus, especially for solar loans (according to the panel, for some reason), a backup to come in and force out payments can help institutions receive more from debtors.

Panelist Eric Johnson highlights the need for large call centers as a "servicing vehicle," meaning the fastest way to get funds back from struggling Americans. They particularly highlight the set of internal skills, such as calling during the day to speak with a home partner, which then becomes a sellable service to make the lenders more when an original payment recipient can't claw back funds. In all, it seemed like a very competitive "you win, I lose" approach to finances, where the haves and have-nots get pitted against each other.

Despite pending material CFPB structural changes, panelists commented on ongoing regulatory complexity for consumer payment servicing (which gets back to LRF's communicated points about preventing servicer harassment).³³ This speaker said a "grumpy borrower" always files a lawsuit and goes to a regulator, so the focus needs to be on consistent data to make it easy to "service the book of business." That perspective seemed a little impersonal to me.

4 Bonus Private Chats

Lately, there are a few discussions I had outside of panels and the most material examples above. I mentioned these in passing during discussions in the past two weeks, so here's my promised written expansion thereto. Always love gleaning some insights from the unique perspectives of others, but honestly, it's a bit draining for me to draw these out in physical discussions with participants.

4.1 Extended Bloomberg Booth Representatives

On Tuesday, I stopped by the LP's booth to further explore their Terminal functionality, something I've continually longed for since a sparse few moments tinkering around on Tech's educational machines. I've commented on material disagreements with their proprietary infrastructure in the past, so I'll cease expanded discussion of that item here. Notwithstanding, the booth representatives were quite friendly and approachable, albeit partially based on a smooth introduction from a staff writer at the event's afternoon snack bar.

This writer ("she") brought me over to the chief bond trader's table ("he") in the busy booth, where they began extolling some of the structured-finance functionality in the subscription. Upon further discussion, he commented that there is no retail access to lending products because of the "complexity in analyzing holdings" and risks. To exemplify this point, he showed me one issue that had different callable dates based on the pool of loans underpinning the securities.

I thought it seemed pretty silly that an investor could not factor in the implicit risks of prepayment, but I didn't harp on the point used to justify the requisite employment of analysts at centralized financial institutions. Next, he told me how the Terminal mirrors the FINRA TRACE public trade reporting feed, a system designed as a best-efforts and little-regulated central reporting scheme between brokers. Given we've all seen the efficacy of SRO data feeds in the past, I probed more into how this exact product worked.

4.1.1 FINRA's Trade Reporting and Compliance Engine

Without diving too deeply into the implementation nuances, I found this interesting because it's relatively similar to MSRB's Electronic Municipal Market Access, but with some key differences. Chiefly, the latter's services are completely free (for normal use), allowing anyone to view complete information about bond transactions. Comparatively, TRACE data only releases limited public information, with full information sold through market data vendors like Bloomberg.

More tellingly, block trades and counterparty information you'd see on-chain cannot be accessed by anyone other than regulators and the brokerage members themselves. All this to point out not just the silliness of this backdoor insiders-only information flow, which makes analyzing structured products an invite-only opportunity, but also to momentarily highlight the centrality of this one organization in all brokerage consensus and communications—an SRO that could soon cease constitutionality.³⁴ Thankfully, these transactions follow standard securities accordances, as he told me that all the transactions they saw were under 144A or public securities.

The former case means that only very large institutions can trade the asset, compared to more general public access under 144. Thus, you might very well only be able to see information on available assets if you're both inside one of these big institutions (as a matter of practical permissioned information) and maintain the large amount of capital they attract (given mandates in oversight laws pending TAD3 documentation). When I pressed him on what "public" meant to Bloomberg, they commented that it only has to do with the trade registration and identification at the SEC, which I agree is how an equal playing field should and CAN work without this central gatekeeping.

4.1.2 Trading Mechanics

This is where things really got weird for me, especially after we'd scrolled past sector-wide time-and-sales pages with seven transactions for the whole week (yes, they were all block trades). When I asked about how to actually participate in the transactions rather than read reported data feeds, everything about the market basically fell apart. Largely, this is because, as he put it, "you can't just log into [broker] and see them" as an end-user, a perspective echoed by the mutual-fund manager in infra § 2.

Apparently, you have to be manually approved by every seller of the bonds or structured products. This entails going through a human application and verification process, which I largely understood to mean checking that you work at one of the big institutions. And no, I was not able to ascertain how these communications take place, but I get the feeling from general sentiments that it's over the phone and through Bloomberg chat.

Then, once you're finally allowed to transact, everything clears bilaterally, over the counter, hence the necessary private reporting feed. Supposedly, this allows market participants in the looped system to receive confirmation of all activity within 15 minutes now (and by SEC approval, this should be updated to one minute per SR-FINRA-2024-004), but I think we all know just how long it can take for actual funds to move and ownership to change hands at the behest of DTC as the central recordkeeper during custody.³⁵ Since we never touch an actual regulated market, the assets become practically impossible for anyone we know to actually buy or sell, especially given most interest comes from manual solicitation.

4.1.3 Her Professional Writing

In discussing these topics, she shared with me her intermittent understanding while referring back to him as the data expert on this vertical. However, it became abundantly apparent that she knew quite a bit about the information underlying this market because she would direct him to type in specific Bloomberg commands which brought up related information not about pool loans. Indeed, our original connection started based on a discussion of shareholder numbers at large.

Apparently, she is a staff writer for Bloomberg Intelligence, and she even shared a hard copy of her last report on residential-mortgage-backed securities. It was a terse and professional article detailing trends over the years about large economic factors influencing the industry, available only to Terminal and information subscribers paying quite the sum. While it didn't explicitly recommend this or that trade, a result sometimes highlighted by online analysis newsletters, the entire dozen pages certainly wove together a great macro story which helped in supposedly analyzing where the year would take market deals.

In discussing this printing, she revealed that the diagrams from the writing were posted on her public LinkedIn profile, a platform quite commonly touted as a go-to tool between practically all participants. The data composing these charts was generally sourced through governmental-agency feeds or (more so) Bloomberg itself. So I thought it was neat that they attempted to release some perspectives for public analysis, albeit without the full written context which one would need to get from a paying subscriber.³⁶

4.2 Parting HOPE Discussion

After the panel, one participant who asked the question about adoption started chatting with us, and we walked out of the room together. Apparently, they volunteered at Operation HOPE, making them the second such volunteer I've met at this event over the years. Super big fan of financial literacy, and I even went through some hoops to try sharing my public YouTube content with their burgeoning teenage audience.³⁷

They expressed great interest in the blockchain side of the industry, having just entered from a parallel field. They believed in the vast possible efficiencies enabled by much of the panel's work, based on their background in reforming RMBS markets after the Recession through the Milken Institute. Thus, after relative torment for days around central bankers, I left the conference with the blissful reminder that there are always good people in the world dedicated to a more decentralized planning and education system open to all.

Again, thanks all for your support throughout this journey, and I'm glad we had a chance to voice our perspectives together on this larger stage. Hopefully, it's just the first of many featured placements to come with the innovative outreach and searching so commonly exemplified by members. Does all this make sense, or is there anything else you'd like to know about this recent excursion?

Footnotes

1. See, e.g., potential work in 📅 Participate in STA Annual Conference #38. As discussed in last night's DUNA meeting, most of these events come from centralized intermediary groups, and thus I'm now excited to have a brand name we can all stand behind as an introductory reference to our affiliation. ↩

2. And there certainly aren't any (authorized) recordings of behind-the-door conversations around the venue at large. Notably, only a third of the space for the meetup was allocated for public discussions, panels, or headlining forums. The rest was privately sponsored closed-door rooms requiring specific permission and check-in from one of the many intermediaries sponsoring the event. Industry participants I knew from years prior frequented these rooms and the secrecy of their walls because they housed "top executives and decision-makers" at some of the largest businesses in the sector. ↩

3. In searching for citations for the next footnote, I went to review the agenda of speakers, topics, and events over the course of the event. I had this webpage up on my phone during the proceedings to organize my activity. However, the agenda completely disappeared off the web, as has happened for every other year I've participated. When looking at Archive.org snapshots of the page, they too are completely blank. My bad in not capturing an offline copy of the information beforehand; have any other community members screenshotted this basic schedule? ↩

4. Unfortunately, I do not have access to the proprietary investment platform offering these assets. Accordingly, I cannot analyze or reference specific offerings composed of central loans. In extended discussion after the panel, I came to interpret that only "qualified" institutions (read: not Qualified) can view offering details or bid on loan pools. Because why would we let investors like us access diversified, proven investment vehicles? ↩

5. This offering was notable to me because the panelist sounded quite dismissive and unserious about the deal because it was "only" sparingly in the realm of eight figures. To me, they made it sound like an act of charity to accept a check under nine figures and certainly anything below 50 million dollars. They also complained that their represented parent firm had to pay higher yields on these assets solely due to the tighter concentration of only a thousand more-or-less students. ↩

6. See Bowie and an investment banker who sold future royalty streams from all pre-1990 music. The creative endeavor netted investment banks nearly twice their original $55 million investment within a decade. Funds back then were used to buy back the rights to his music from a former manager. ↩

7. See, e.g., footnote wording in the label which came up as a chief source of artist cash flows. The platform in question seems to reward general mass popularity at the relative expense of smaller artists or those who might produce niche content. This to say nothing of certain anticompetitive practices. ↩

8. Since the book isn't OCR'd yet, I'll expand a little as to the elementary context of the noted information. The situation started with $500,000 of funding towards research and development of isolated, localized, and (relatively) inefficient power plants, which were easier to sell directly to the wealthy alone. As Edison sought to expand into more efficient systems that could service the (relative) local masses, capital dried to a nub, and Insull had to raise material grassroots revenue through relentless power-station selling to a score of municipal governments reliant on gas lighting. He later used established and childhood familial connections in England to raise capital from across the pond at more favorable terms. ↩

9. In a blockchain era, might all this happen directly on-chain? It seems simple enough for borrowers to submit their documents to the investor community at large when calling on funds from a smart contract. Perhaps we don't need the manual bank-and-forth between financiers? ↩

10. In the limited dialogue we had about this deal and without revealing personal or other reasonably confidential information, this was not issued directly to the sovereignty. It follows the traditional conduit-authority path, a system based largely on unbelievably corrupt IRS statutes approved by Congress decades ago. Should a select few central bankers really determine which parts of our economy get to grow without exposure to general public taxation, providing for the services the people of this nation so direly require? ↩

11. I point out the representative relationship ratio only to highlight the large amounts of goals necessarily centralized into these select few individuals and their limited (24 hours/day) policymaking opportunities. Opportunities which can all too often be captured by central industry interests. See, e.g., the California Bitcoin Education Center, which presently operates out of a Santa Monica "Bitcoin Office," to the benefit of a 501(c)(4) foundation's board of directors, which largely consists of Bitcoin whales, including custodial investors, L2 intermediaries, and commercial miners. Should those running our pension funds, coming from central investment banks, really be allowed to campaign the public to acquire an asset held in their own portfolios under the auspices of social welfare and public funds? ↩

12. See subsequent rulemaking implementations in Los Angeles Council, which is the source for the 2014 quotes on economic impact, available at https://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2014/14-0812_pc_11-5-14%20(1).pdf at 2. The staff report makes sparing, if any, direct mentions of green energy or solar panels—explicit campaigning points largely publicized when the original rule was signed by Governor Schwarzenegger. Should we really delegate such an important activity as speeding up the green transition to the often desolate offices of county and town halls? ↩

13. In exchanges like these, I personally take a more relaxed approach to political influence. While I think we could get more immediate results by bombarding Bill and his team now, I've generally found it easier and more impactful to let the seeds of past discussions simmer for some time before referencing them in a new actionable context. I look forward to seeing Bill's work in the subcommittee and generally would prefer to defer to past sentiments in an active discussion there rather than push for directive policy change beforehand. Ultimately, the matter at hand of replacing DTCC is pretty far out of any Representative's working context, and it's my interpretation of public information that the approach will come to a head with natural Congressional oversight (with us) once the masses cry out about inadequate Cede holdings. ↩

14. Just in general browsing over other work as I'm writing this, I stumbled into the plethora of Presidential directives and nominations guiding pending public policy. He seems actively at work doing the minutiae bureaucratic central leadership tasks requisite to increasing influence and furthering objectives. Fairly broad, but that's partially the most I can garner from the relatively vague action headings on Congress.gov, which often exclude any supporting primary documentation, as is so common in central decision-making reportings. ↩

15. Later on, other panelists discussed the debt ceiling explicitly. I find it relatively ironic that one reason the Nation can never pay back all its debt stems from the financial system's structural reliance on Treasuries, a system which generally fuels loans at interest. And here we are at a conference about a whole industry of products designed to charge (nearly) total usury for working economic investments. ↩

16. All in, I think Bill was pretty professional on this talking point. There are a lot of executives or politicians that repeat much worse rhetoric around decentralized electronic labor, and their assumptions seemed well-founded. Relevantly, Bill's small-business background and history of regional family business predispose him to synchronous in-person geographically coordinated work just by the nature of local life experiences. Perhaps a generation with the option of online-first careers might change this perspective once and for all? ↩

17. I've noticed a general tendency for central financial institutions to rely relentlessly on directive oversight and control systems rather than actual productivity as you and I would generally define the term. An example I’ve mentioned a couple of times throughout the years is my Dad's work, particularly around the time of the Recession. I vividly recall the change in compensation mechanisms forced onto the bank by Dodd–Frank, which led to much more directorial, stringent oversight—ultimately resulting in much less business closed, largely given a lack of operative flexibility. Should we really limit individual performance and consideration to the point that someone achieves more investment returns comprehensively but yields wages of up to 80% less? ↩

18. And this is completely OK and to be expected from central orgs like the current government! Namely, it's quite a bit of work to keep all communications and interactions strictly public, especially when working in close geographical proximity to other members. But we will see other dissenting views later on from a similar stature criticizing the relatively limited and generally unsourced media posts and statements. Again, I think this is super acceptable and perhaps the best they can do with the given current infrastructure so deeply centralized with no avenues for easy web citations. ↩

19. As a vague and tangential example, I continue working around and contemplating the Stellar Community Fund, with which I have quite the storied history. Recently, a project was (heavily) criticized for requesting ~$20k for a month of work from two engineers. These team members had previously developed exceptional free and open-source public infrastructure and put such products into production at charities such as St. Jude. Notwithstanding, a large pushback materialized in the perspective that such consideration was too high, despite being barely in the range of six figures for material talent. ↩

20. I'll abstain from citations here since it's a whole lot of negative content. The general perspective I mean comes around the question of who should decide what people do in a society, a legitimately complex question which I tend to think only the market as a decentralized mass can answer. But, of course, the market takes time, and far too commonly we see a convincing politician able to centrally coordinate and directly manage others' efforts through (relative) coercion, such as through control of the monetary supply. ↩

21. The most prominent of these was the Representative who proclaimed that the only people using the tech were sitting in their underwear in their mom's basement. Bill highlighted how we'll need to show and explain to such elder Representatives how the technology largely affects and transforms the daily user's financials. I interpreted their other comments to generally align with public statements made by the President, whether fully comprehended by the latter or not. ↩

22. While I think we all know the higher levels are intimately familiar with how this technology obviates their businesses, I still find myself surprised by the number of general attendees who have no idea what a blockchain is. In a lunchtime discussion with a very well-seasoned data salesperson at the London Stock Exchange, I was asked again the infamous "what is blockchain" question out of genuine curiosity as to what the technology is. After explaining the shared, distributed ledger concept in brief, they remarked that it made sense why our panel was on the last day, as this removes the need for a trusted central recordkeeper. I had a similar experience with another general participant around an equivalent table, although I glanced past their organizational affiliation. ↩

23. Unfortunately, this conundrum exists in many private-sector working arrangements too. While it still looks good as something to theoretically promote worker lifetime security, I find it more restrictive and coercing than genuinely freeing, should your employment length be tenured to a pension or the sorts. For instance, your 401(k) account can move from employer to employer as you progress throughout your career, ignoring the fundamental challenges with the aforementioned structure circa usability constraints and unwarranted costs. How would you feel if that entire retirement portfolio went to zero just because you think your skills would be better employed somewhere outside your current role? ↩

24. Consider, for instance, a direct democracy system where certain trusted representatives distribute allocated funds to a distributed workforce according to their interpretation of the value each individual contributed in their respective area of expertise. Consider also, for argument's sake, that such a representative is an expert in such specialization, and thus they only make informed and unbiased (read: uncorrupted) allocations on a good-faith basis. Why then would we need such a convoluted bureaucracy handling each and every little public interaction save for costly direct media prods? ↩

25. I wonder how much easier and yet more direct these discussions would be if the Nation's money-printing was quite directly tied to popular sovereignty over and above private banking interests. Banking interests which I understand so deeply influence the present tax code in an ongoing proposition to incentivize indebtedness to the select few Federal Reserve System participants. Would this present reality really be so much different from the proposed Executive control from August last year? ↩

26. I will make my best efforts to (i) share login access information, (ii) ascertain the exact primary recording of our blockchain panel, and (iii) compile a playlist of released public videos once the Structured Finance Association releases this info circa April. These playback systems are generally only available for a few months, I've noticed, so I recommend taking any and all archive snippets as soon as needed. Perhaps we can merge these into the pending whydrs/documents#1 repo if anything material isn't released publicly, as I commonly find to be the case. ↩

27. I haven't been extensively analyzing trends like these since the maximal employment data of late 2019, foreshadowing a deep yield curve inversion that has played out over the past four years. Notwithstanding, I'd be remiss not to comment on the general sentiments here, as I agree with them in large schematic part based on personal observations of central organizations shedding employment. Should markets wake up to the increasing realities of decreased labor opportunities, it follows that we'll see slowdowns likely enhanced by cyclical structural inadequacies in the fiat system. ↩

28. I can only speak to my personal interpretations of a plethora of Securities laws enacted through Congress and the Commission, and I wholeheartedly support tact in implementation here so that we don't have another Blackwater. But something in this philosophy just rings true to me. My experiences agree—from seeing transfer agent rules related to Y2K readiness to having a physical ink signature of Form TA-2 submissions on hand; I've just got to believe a more efficient system exists with more deference to market operations, and perhaps increased transparency requirements, which thankfully come naturally in Web3. ↩

29. The story as relayed related to an imprudent racial joke told by a comedian before a Trump rally in Madison Square Garden. The event was plastered as campaign-breaking news by the opposition, but Steve explains how this was just a media-fueled overreaction. When the results at the polls showed continuing diverse support (from an area with over two-thirds Puerto Rican voters), he knew that the misplaced Dominican joke wouldn't singlehandedly bring down the Administration's initial campaigning. ↩

30. Steve specifically highlights the President's featured placement on the Joe Rogan show and other mass-media internet-era platforms, platforms which were sternly ignored in a few highlighted cases by the opposition candidate. I really hope we get to the point of entirely online elections as soon as possible because I think that alone will drastically lower the bar for citizen participation (sans advertising) and documented public discourse. I've got to think many bright minds just don't have the wherewithal or the stamina to jet back and forth between political geographies, and frankly, that sort of skill set seems less and less relevant in an increasingly digitized world (economy, political arena, and enforcement arena). ↩

31. Remember them getting comfy with Trump and Musk (via X) during the campaign, only to revert into more standard power dialect later? Relevantly, they proposed the structural change so foreign to panel members: the re-privatization of the enterprises, as commented in the last sentence of an article reporting on the Senate confirmation, available at https://www.reuters.com/world/us/senate-approves-pulte-fannie-freddie-regulator-2025-03-13. And then we have the start of a Board takeover with the appointment of Musk's trusted engineer earlier this week, available at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-18/musk-ally-doge-member-spacex-s-christopher-stanley-tapped-for-fannie-mae-board. ↩

32. Wait a minute, doesn't that sound a whole lot like a stock offering? That's what I thought, and in the aforementioned extra-panel conversation, I had this perspective affirmed by a highly skilled financial engineer. Of course, the bank in place assumes none of the risks traditionally eschewed by non-collateralized structured-product offerings, tilting the favor of returns back to Wall Street. ↩

33. I've experienced a marked failure of the protection mechanisms at hand in past experiences with Zelle. Less than a year after COVID struck, I was scammed through a transfer to a known malicious account. Around the same time, there was an ongoing Congressional debate as to the need for financial institutions to protect consumers from fraudulent Zelle payments, which resulted in a forced mandate to reverse transactions initiated after an account takeover. While I could've lied and said this sizable transfer arose from such activity, I told my bank the truth about what happened, and they returned the favor by doing absolutely nothing in reconciliation (as did Apple Cash). ↩

34. Alpine is now in the Supreme Court, and the docket files can be followed online, available at https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/24a808.html. The latest action from last week could show us a groundbreaking bankruptcy claim against the SRO, based on a denial from Chief Justice Roberts to stop the FINRA proceedings. See reporting thereof in Reuters, available at https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-supreme-court-allows-finra-proceedings-against-alpine-securities-2025-03-14, an organization that also reported yesterday on the Hon. Roberts' rare vocal public pushback against the President's recent actions criticizing Federal judges, available at https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-chief-justice-roberts-calls-judges-impeachment-are-inappropriate-after-trump-2025-03-18. ↩

35. As opposed to holding the underlying bonds in your own name, which can only be stringently implemented through manual requests on the component level. Once things are rolled into the securitization, similar to retirement custodied accounts, I understand that the assets cannot be moved outside of DTC and the underlying collateral debts need to stay in the name of the trustee held through DTC for pooling. Thus, we're stuck dealing with internal institutional transfers for local trades or direct broker exchanges, which carry intermittent counterparty risk. ↩

36. In thinking about sharing documents, I thought of another section I'd like to work into the Documents repo: an area to store our FOIA responses across community outreaches. Relevantly, members should know that the Commission hosts a public log of all FOIA requests mapped to the full name of the requestor. Thus, anyone adding a new response could be linking their account to a real name. ↩

37. Briefly, this exchange didn’t go anywhere, and more generally, I'm quite poor at converting in-person discussions into results (compared to online direct-response marketing). I had a similar experience in high school with Catalyst Academy, now-defunct North Carolina nonprofit aiming at educating teachers about financial life skills. In both cases, the individuals involved were all very excited about my free educational work, but the relationship between myself and such representatives just died down and led nowhere, likely by my own responsibility. While I did get featured on a blog post way back then from the latter, all around I've not made much progress on sharing the free resources I spent so much time and resources creating, which I largely attribute to the lack of entertainment value therein. ↩