Thanks for posting, and someone else may be able to give a short answer to your question about US financial sanctions, but I also take it as motivation to write something about their book.
We haven't had the reckoning of a court order ignored yet (not fully, their lawyers are still pettifogging it up) but if any of this sticks, we're basically in rule-by-decree territory.
Farrell's book is very good. I'm generally bad with finance, in that I understand things when they're explained but I find them so boring that none of it sticks. But Underground Empire was clearly and engagingly enough written that I could follow it, and the subject matter couldn't be more important.
Fifteen years ago, few people outside financial institutions paid much attention to SWIFT, a global system that banks use for messaging, or the "dollar clearing" system, both of which are central to global financial transactions. Everyone used the internet, but only systems administrators and engineers really cared about how it worked. Specialized trade publications might have cared about the global supply chains that allow complex manufacturing to happen, but no one else did.
I don't think it's entirely true to say that in 2010 no one outside a few people in financial institutions or specialist magazines cared about SWIFT or global supply chains, until the Blessed Ed Snowden popped off to Moscow. I may be biased because I was, in 2010, writing about SWIFT and global supply chains for a specialist magazine, but I seem to remember "offshoring" being a big issue more generally. I seem to remember a lot of attention paid to piracy in the Indian Ocean (there was a South Park episode). People were interested in the routes oil tankers sailed. Attempts North Korea and Iran off from global finance was a very big story.
Similarly, "it took decades for the U.S. to really turn the technical systems of the global economy to its purposes" - really? Really and Suez Crisis truly?
Do they still cart bricks of gold back and forth between country vaults in the basement of the NY Fed?
2- Sounds like the USAID order is being ignored, people showed up for work and were sent away. Also there are sporadic reports of payments still not being resumed but then you're looking at the incompetence/evil line.
What DOGE is alleged to have done already amounts to the largest, most consequential cybercrime in history of which we are aware.
I feel like it's good enough to just say that they took over the software that pays the bills/writesthe checks.
Congress used to have the power of the purse. Now Trump has the power of the ephon's transfer.
It doesn't help that every pronouncement they make is so ensconced in thick layers of stupidity that it wouldn't pass muster as satire.
Elon Musk has control of the check book is probably the easiest way to explain it.
7: I just wish there were state crimes we could charge him with.
If we're going to drill down to subordinates then maybe we should say there are some 20 somethings who can do whatever they like with America's money.
11.1 is what the founders intended. Separation of powers. Trump controls the executive branch, but Musk has the power of the purse.
Thanks for 9 because I was temporarily derailed by what looked like some obscure classical reference. (Didn't Sparta have ephons?)
People keep talking about a "payments system" which to my mind means something like SWIFT or Fedwire, but the thing they are discussing sounds more like...a database of grantees?
https://electrek.co/2025/02/05/tesla-sales-dropped-60-in-germany/
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Because I didn't even understand the general application of the reason or implication, I was rejected by my companions and despairingly scolded by my teachers, who took to beating me harshly though it did no good at all.|>
More from Farrell today on the topic.
The short version. The Trump administration has swiftly graduated from trying to weaponize internal payment systems (the Department of Treasury systems that allow the federal government to pay monies across its different parts, and to the outside world). Now it is trying to weaponize external payments too. It has seized back $80 million that was paid to New York, and is now trying to do the same with $20 billion paid out by the Environment Protection Agency. This is money that was already paid out by the federal government, and is now sitting in other entities' regular bank accounts. The Trump administration wants to get the banks where the accounts are located (Citibank is the one we know about) to reverse these payments.
If this happens, it is a massive escalation, potentially weaponizing the entire banking and payments system against organizations that the Trump administration opposes for political reasons. That is not something that you, as a U.S. citizen want to happen. If you are not a U.S. citizen, there are reasons why you do not want it to happen either, but that's a topic for a later post.
Patrick recommends that you write a formal letter rather than use an online submission form. Given the urgency of the situation, I would urge that you do both.
The goal here is to make it clear to banks that they face real, long term reputational damage if they reverse legitimate payments. Customers who have accounts in these banks Do Not Want a World in which the government can arbitrarily help itself to what is in other people's and organizations' bank accounts. If a bank gives in, it will be hurting itself as well as the account holder.
Because of the cosmopolitan nature of the Omaha stockyards of a century ago, my grandfather had a close friend who was Belgian or French or something. His name was given as a middle name to my dad. So, only 50% of lawyers I know with that unusual (for America) name are evil.
But really cosmopolitan. There were tamale sellers on the street, random guys with French names, and a baby Malcom X.
According to my aunt, a guy would come to the apartment, opening the unlocked door, drop off my grandfather's liquor order, and leave without saying a word to anyone there.
That Bove fucker is ten years younger than me and looks like Abe Vigoda if Abe Vigoda was an asshole.
This is important https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/trump-is-weaponizing-financial-payments
30 is interesting, especially the update - lot of contractors looking into the details of ACH transfers this morning I suspect.
lol, forgot about that until dsquared reskeeted it https://bsky.app/profile/dsquareddigest.bsky.social/post/3li3revgink25
I'm "interested" to see how this pans out. My company, and specifically me and my team, do consultancy work for a US government funded organisation (name ends in something like "of Shmongress") and pretty much all of what we do has contracts or project titles that involve _all_ of the buzzwords the moronic little fuckers are allegedly targeting. FFS, my literal job title has one of their target phrases in it.
I'd like to think a British bank would tell them to go fuck themselves when they come to try and claw it back.
If they didn't, I think you would have a very good chance of getting a fraud conviction. Banks are only supposed to take your money away without your permission in pursuance of a court order.
FFS, my literal job title has one of their target phrases in it.
ttaM's job is Biased Historical Woman.
Maybe an Equity Fetus?
An Evidence-Based Entitlement?
The term "Equity Fetus" is no longer used; under the new administration they are legally Nepo Babies from the moment of conception.
re: 36
Heh. I'm High Overseer of Woke.
Fortunately, for now, the legislative branch isn't carrying out executive branch orders aside from completely failing act like a co-equal branch when it comes to oversight and legislation.
I was reminded the other day of the research paper identifying the most and least metal words in the English language, which led to my attempt to write the least metal metal song conceivable, and the existence of this Bad Word List makes it possible to write the Least Fundable Research Proposal Conceivable.
The great federal search and replace has gotten to the National Park Service's Stonewall page:
Before the 1960s, almost everything about living openly as a lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB) person was illegal. The Stonewall Uprising on June 28, 1969 is a milestone in the quest for LGB civil rights and provided momentum for a movement.
This isn't on the level of anyone losing their job, but it really nails the spooky "welcome to the timeline where you never existed" vibe.