Gotta pay those interest charges

Yet now, said Reuters, the Fed has said there is not enough risk management in place to allow FinTechs full-fledged access to the payment system. As the St. Louis Fed President James Bullard told Reuters in November, the FinTechs “probably do want access to the payments system, but they don’t want the regulation that would come with that access. I am concerned that FinTech will be the source of the next crisis.”

The stock-market sell-off is going to be a significant drag on the U.S. economy this year as wealthy households feel its impact, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

 Lower equity prices could take half a percentage point off U.S. gross-domestic product growth in 2019, with overall tighter financial conditions restricting expansion by around 1 percentage point, Goldman economist Daan Struyven wrote in a note Tuesday. In October, he had said the positive wealth effect from equity gains in 2017 and early 2018 had likely evaporated.

Rates been up, until recently.  Less wealth liquidity to fund investments. They will not say so, but governments are having a hard time with interest charges everywhere.  Wealth can provide liquidity on the margin, but expects a stock market pay back. The Fed cannot guarantee the latter.