Cool! BTW, the WW II museum complex in New Orleans is incredible. The Pacific Theatre museum here in Texas is great too - I found the plaque from my grandfather's ship, the USS Boise. c.
Janet Yellen, the Secretary of Treasury and former head of the Fed, who infamously received $7 million in speaking fees during her time âawayâ from government, received $800,000 from Citadel (one of the hedge funds involved) for a single speaking engagement. Thatâs double what Hillary got from Goldman Sachs in 2016.
Yellen charged what the market would bear. She was open about the money she earned and has pledged to follow the advice of a Treasury Department ethics lawyer while serving as Treasury Secretary. What's the problem?
IIRC Steve Mnuchin, Jared Kushner and other Trump administration officials repeatedly failed to list all sources of income and contacts with members of foreign governments.
But Yellenâs speaking fees, for better or worse, arenât anomalous. Her predecessors at the Fed, Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke, did the same kind of speaking arrangements once their public tenures ended. Bernanke is now on Citadelâs payroll as a senior adviser. Moreover, Yellen did not expect to be coming back into public office after leaving the Fed â she was a bit of a last-minute surprise as a treasury nominee. And speaking at a bank a handful of times is not the same as working at the bank.
What matters is not entirely that Yellen gave the speeches but also transparency about what she said in them, said Jeff Hauser, the founder and director of the Revolving Door Project. âIt is, by DC standards, not a huge deal if she makes the speeches public. The more weâve been thinking about it, we need to see those speeches,â he said.
The Biden transition said that while no comprehensive video or transcripts are available, Yellenâs views on a variety of topics â including monetary policy, the climate crisis, and economic inequality â have been well documented.
âLeaders in academia, business and economics were eager to hear Yellenâs views especially during a turbulent time for the economy,â said Biden spokesperson Sean Savett in an email. âYellen did not deliver prepared remarks at her speaking engagements â most were armchair conversations where she answered questions from a moderator, some of whom were reporters. A number of those events were public and many were covered by the press at the time.â
... Look at these from a perspective of results,â said Carter Dougherty, communications director of Americans for Financial Reform, pointing to Yellenâs work at the Fed, where she generally favored better banking regulation and took the central bankâs full employment mandate seriously. âDo I wish Wall Street money was not everywhere? Yes. But sheâs got a track record thatâs praiseworthy and shows signs of being a great Treasury Secretary.â
Along with her disclosure, Yellen sent a letter outlining the steps she will take on ethics compliance, including getting permission from the Treasury Departmentâs ethics lawyer to weigh in on issues involving firms from which sheâs received money for a year. Blinken and Haines took similar steps.
