HUD and Go Seek

Let’s Talk Public Policy.

Last week I was invited down to D.C. to attend nomination hearings for several nominees to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Treasury, and Commerce. The nominees all had impressive resumes: serving at the United Nations (living in Bosnia for 18 months), ex Goldman Sachs (of course), and current Chief of Staff to Orrin Hatch. One standout candidate, HUD Assistant Secretary of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity nominee Anna Maria Farias, grew up in housing projects herself. She later became one of the first HUD executive directors to live in housing developments during her tenure. They were 6 legitimate nominees.

The nominees expressed gratitude for the opportunity in eloquent opening statements, and initially it was hard to tell where everyone fell on the political spectrum. Enter Elizabeth Warren, who eagerly pointed out the flaws in some of their soft and cuddly rhetoric. She curtly asked why some of the nominees were even there. 60% of the funding for protecting low-income housing is on the chopping block, so what will their jobs be? (Yikes… you heard the sighs in the room).

The overall sentiment in D.C. is bleak. Partisanship is at an all-time high, preventing us from accomplishing anything (see health care). So what does this mean for investors? It means we need to monitor policy changes and be nimble in developing our investment theses. More consumers need to be protected, and we should pay particular attention to banking regulation and fair housing. In these challenging times, we see opportunities for a better kind of investment strategy.

Anna-Marie Wascher, CEO

The recent uptick in political drama has produced a new boom in activism-focused apps. Countable has tripled in downloads since the 2016 election, demonstrating the potential for political trends to drive growth for well-positioned companies.

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Consumer lending reform is a hot topic on both sides of the aisle. Affirm, a point-of-sale lender founded by PayPal co-founder Max Levchin, is seeking to bring greater transparency to consumer lending. The company is now servicing over 1,000 corporate clients.

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For non-profits and Fortune 500 companies alike, staying on top of government policy changes can be exceptionally challenging. An interesting startup called FiscalNote is working to address this problem through a “government relationship management” solution.

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