Post by graham steele / Redsky

This conspiracy theory is rooted in 2 sources: an Obama-era effort to stop payment fraud known as ‘Operation Choke Point’ that implicated certain industries (firearms, payday lending, gambling, tobacco, etc); and banks' voluntary commitments to address gun violence, climate change, and other issues.

aug 5, 2025, 4:16 pm • 5 1

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Conservatives accused banks of ‘discrimination’ and ‘redlining.’ They've tried to use federal regulations, state laws, state-constructed blacklists, law enforcement investigations, and jawboning to force banks to do business with energy companies, firearms businesses, crypto, and other industries.

aug 5, 2025, 4:16 pm • 4 1 • view

... they're de-facto cartels. And using those cartels as a form of shadow regulation has boomeranged so badly that it's now being used as a cudgel by TERF pressure groups against marginalized LGBTQ creators. (Or were you just sliding that past with that whole "other industries" thing?)

aug 9, 2025, 1:39 am • 1 0 • view

If you're going to ban crypto, and fossil fuels, and firearms...then do it, and do it openly, and explain why you're doing it. "Jawboning" a cartel to do it for you is only ever going to end up harming marginalized people. The people with actual power will always be fine.

aug 9, 2025, 1:42 am • 1 0 • view

Seriously, we're already at the point where they're using their cartel power to stop people from talking about their use of cartel power against "other industries". At the very least, graham, ditch the euphemisms. You're talking about debanking sex workers and adult creators. Admit that much.

aug 9, 2025, 2:26 am • 3 1 • view

First, it's important to understand the Executive Order as an attempt to use the banking system to privilege certain groups and marginalize others. This administration claims (without legal basis) that conservatives are subject to "discrimination" while gutting actual anti-discrimination laws.

ESG opponents have framed ESG measures as violating the constitutional rights, namely as a form of “discrimination” against, or “redlining” of, companies in certain sectors. But there is a good reason why states have not enforced traditional antidiscrimination laws against banks that incorporate ESG considerations, and that is because banking laws and regulations make clear which groups and interests are protected against discrimination. Under fair lending laws like the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) and Fair Housing Act (FHA), it is unlawful to discriminate in credit or housing decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex or marital status, age, disability, or because a person receives public assistance. Despite the attempts to force banks to serve them, fossil fuel companies and other corporations implicated by ESG policies are not members of a protected class and are therefore not entitled to constitutional protection in the form of guaranteed access to the banking system. Nor are banks, which have long enjoyed outsized influence over, not marginalization from, the political process.

The anti-ESG movement’s minoritarian worldview frames banks’ aversion to do business with fossil fuel and gun companies as “discrimination” against those companies. Importantly, however, not all minorities are seen as being worthy of protection. Many of the same constituencies that oppose ESG are also challenging laws that protect actual protected classes—including racial and other minorities—from discrimination and remedy past instances of discrimination. As drafted, anti-ESG laws allow banks to justify dropping low-income consumers for not being sufficiently profitable, while simultaneously making it harder for banks to make risk-based determinations regarding corporate borrowers in certain industries. This has the effect of allowing banks to perpetuate the marginalization of certain populations, violating the spirit, if not the letter, of fair lending laws.

aug 5, 2025, 4:16 pm • 5 1 • view

Second, the Trump administration's attacks are factually baseless. They are targeting reasonable actions taken by banking regulators and banks to respond to the financial impacts of climate change, financial and illicit finance risks of crypto, and racial discrimination in lending.

This paper’s conclusions regarding the appropriate role of ESG in banking offers insights are likely to be counterintuitive to even careful observers of the anti-ESG debate. On its face, the Vullo decision narrowly vindicates the ability of pro-firearms, and by extension other anti-ESG entities, to mount free speech claims against certain types of government actions. Perhaps ironically, the broader ramifications of these cases actually pose the greatest threats to many of the partisan interests that have supported the NRA’s claim. That is because pro-ESG measures are largely supported by legitimate financial policy goals. Conversely, anti-ESG efforts are driven by partisan-political rhetoric and motives. As a result, anti-ESG laws likely violate the principles articulated in Vullo, but capacious safety and soundness-based bank regulation and supervision is clearly permissible. These findings challenge conventional narratives regarding ESG’s purported “politicization” of financial regulation.

aug 5, 2025, 4:16 pm • 4 1 • view

Third, Wall Street won't save us. They are eager for tax cuts and deregulation. In exchange, they are happy to work with the Trump Administration to further its agenda of exclusion in the same way some law firms and universities have.

A Bank of America spokesman said the bank welcomed the administration’s efforts to provide regulatory clarity. “We’ve provided detailed proposals and will continue to work with the administration and Congress to improve the regulatory framework,” he said. Over the past several months, banks have moved to head off action by the federal government, meeting with Republican attorneys general and updating their policies to clearly state they don’t discriminate on the basis of political affiliation.

aug 5, 2025, 4:16 pm • 4 0 • view

The good news is that this administration's actions create opportunities for future administrations to think more expansively about how the financial system can support goals like racial equity and climate sustainability. Here's a shorter write-up of this issue: blogs.law.ox.ac.uk/oblb/blog-po...

This paper offers a second contribution by proposing a structure by which banking laws can serve as a democratically legitimate vehicle through which ESG considerations can be incorporated into the business of banking. As the current ESG debate illustrates, the allocation of corporate speech rights and antidiscrimination protections bears on which groups are entitled to full participation in the economy. How policymakers define the scope and aims of banking law determines who has access to money and credit—and therefore how the broader society is structured. Importantly, state anti-ESG efforts eschew longstanding issues of financial security and stability that have motivated banking laws in favor of partisan-political grievances that have the potential interfere with legitimate banking policy goals. Because banking and bank regulation has never and can never be fully “de-politicized” or separated from broader questions of democratic governance, such policies should be decided by publicly accountable agencies.

aug 5, 2025, 4:16 pm • 3 0 • view