Janet Yellen Got $810k to Give Speeches at Citadel | Hacker News Reader

Janet Yellen Got $810k to Give Speeches at Citadel

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57 pointswombatmobile28 comments

So, here is one problem I have.

One person says, 'Look they're corrupt, they're taking money from someone they need to regulate'. Then...when someone from their identity politics does it, it's 'no big deal'. They somehow 'earned it'.

This type of tribal behavior is a poison to society.

Does anybody know what the rationale is behind companies paying these crazy sums to speakers? At first look it looks like a bribe to get better connections and treatment from people in or close to political power but is there a more charitable explanation? Does such a speech give deep insight that's worth the money?

My company sometimes has reasonably famous keynote speakers and I find these speeches either entertaining or boring but they never seem to produce much value. But I am just an engineer. Maybe business guys get more out of it?

<$25,000 cost of getting the speaker in to talk to your audience.

25,000<x<100,000 -> case by case

>$100,000 -> legalized bribery, pay for play etc.

I read that by having such notable speakers, hedge funds can invite and impress wealthy clients to what is essentially a big sales pitch. If you're trying to get 20 people to each give you $50 million, then speaker fees of $2 million is just part of the marketing budget.

I’ve always found myself conflicted about things like this. It’s very common for industry leaders to be paid for their advice and appearances.

It feels like that might make them more likely to give favorable treatment to certain groups or organizations. It also seems like there might be high-ranking career treasury department staff that could very effectively fulfill the role.

At the same time it would seem that we’d want knowledgeable people, the kind of people who’s advice others would pay to receive, leading our institutions.

They don't even have to be overtly corrupt to favor people who give them gifts. Reciprocity is such an inborn part of human nature that I'd believe they could have nothing but the best intentions and still become severely biased.

Can you point me to examples of non regulator, non-government official, non-politician "industry leaders" making $300k a speech?

The most well-known motivational speakers can make this much, like Tony Robbins or Magic Johnson. It will cost you a similar amount to get someone like Zuckerberg. You’re right that many high-profile political figures receive the same amount.

That said, more people are interested in what Bill Clinton has to say than Hillary Schieve so it’s all relative.

So you're saying the demographics of people who can charge $300k

1) People who make more than $300k per hour on their existing wealth.

2) The most famous / successful motivational speaker in the world that his built that business over many decades.

3) Magic Johnson - who, i mean, is magic johnson so fair.

4) Politicians.

Nothing to see here.

I think it’s wrong to attack someone for this reason. Being highly successful and giving paid speeches is something most of us would like to do. We should judge her by her actions.

Side note: many people you imagine to come from a smoke-filled room of evil (Citadel?) are much more reasonable once you get to know them. It’s not like everyone in finance is actually a reptile.

Instead we should focus on making the economic game fairer. I think Janet would agree.

It can be seen as a legal form of bribery. What information could possibly be worth so much, and in two speeches and some 'webinars'? I don't think it can possibly be ethical to accept such sums from corporations that you ultimately will be tasked with regulating. To think we once made a guy sell his peanut farm.

The good news is it's done. She doesn't owe Citadel any favors. It's not legally considered a conflict of interest (as far as I know; not a lawyer)

It is also typically considered a good thing when public servants are financially stable as it makes them less susceptible to influence.

I don't think so. $810k is too small amount of money for a person like Yellen.

>Side note: many people you imagine to come from a smoke-filled room of evil (Citadel?) are much more reasonable once you get to know them.

I work in the industry, at a competitor, and while the people at Citadel may be reasonable, Citadel itself is absolutely a horrific monster, the Godzilla of the HFT space, destroying and devouring everything in its path. It makes a huge chunk of revenue from payment for flow, which is arguable of little economic value (and banned in many countries), securing an unfair advantage to itself through political means (lobbying etc. to enable this) rather than through honest competition in the market.

That description of Citadel sounds like it could be Google and its advertising engine scraping the top off the global economy.

I don't have a magic policy answer here, but any long-term solution will not involve finger pointing at individuals doing legal things.

Setting the bar at legality is what got us here. When it comes to the relationship between government and business how about what’s ethical and right for the majority of Americans instead of just what’s legal.

In most ethics trainings I have taken we are told to avoid taking actions that could lead to the perception of impropriety because the perception of impropriety can be as bad or worse than impropriety itself.

That ethos becomes more important the higher ones station becomes in politics and business.

I am not accusing Yellen of anything improper, however these transactions give circumstantial support to those who may believe she acted or will act in an improper way.

Yea, I’m not talking so much about Yellen as the relationship between the wealthy and government officials in general.

I’m sure that the people working at Citadel are perfectly likable people. I also believe they provide a service that doesn’t benefit the average American because it’s inaccessible. Even if they could, does it provide value or does it exist only to add inefficiency and extract wealth for those who are already more wealthy?

I think many people see the extremely wealthy such as those running Citadel as the people who play by different rules than the rest because of their wealth. Does that make them evil? I don’t think so, but I’m not going to pretend that having the wealth and relationships to get political favors means you earned your wealth fairly.

This is a totally naive way of looking at the situation.

You're right there's no smoke in the room, there's only a massive multi-billion dollar corporation buying influence from someone powerful in government in the room. That this is not totally obvious to everyone is extremely worrisome.

I really don’t think this fits the HN think space.

Why not? Care to elaborate your thoughts?

Peanuts.

> Jan 1, 2021 In the past two years, President-elect Joe Biden's pick to be Treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, has raked in more than $7.2 million in speaking fees from Wall Street and large corporations...

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/01/yellen-made-million...

And 5 days ago:

> Janet Yellen cleared her final hurdle Monday on her historic path to secretary of the Treasury Department, gaining overwhelming Senate confirmation for the key economic position.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/25/janet-yellen-gets-senate-con...

She will protect the US economy against the evil crypto and public enemy #1, bitcoin, you (and her generous donators) can count on her for that :-)

Is bitcoin meant to be a currency or an investment?

If it’s a currency without price stability, what’s the point?

If it’s an investment without any underlying economic value, what’s the point?

Bitcoin is peer-to-peer digital cash. I don't need to go to a bank, and I can send money to friends around the world without worrying about currency controls or other bullshit. It can be both. It can be one or the other. If you don't care about these things, that's cool. But this is a drum that's been beaten for years... not sure how useful continual discussion of skepticism of something that's been around for 13 years and seems to be working as expected...

I personally like the idea of a unit of exchange, investment vehicle, and store of value that isn't exclusively backed by America's fleet of destroyers and aircraft carriers and trillion dollar war-machines, and that isn't forever devalued due to inflation. Given that a single BTC is divisible into 0.00000001 satoshis, maybe one day a BTC will be worth $100,000,000 USD per BTC. Probably not, but it's not entirely speculative.

You can buy many things with BTC. People choose not to because they expect it to rise in value. People spend dollars because they either have to, or because they want to put it into cashflow generating assets.

The dollar has lost 7% of its value in the past year because of ongoing emergency measures by the Fed. This is great for aggregate asset inflation, but is terrible for anyone's savings.

Arguing about bitcoin's utility after the last year's monetary policy is a little funny to me.

To clarify, assuming the actual float of BTC is around 15e6 max (around 6e6 is presumed missing forever due to user error) ever, once all the bitcoins have been mined, and you use my figure of 1e8 USD per single BTC, then you get a market cap of 1.5e15 (1.5 quadrillion). Right now there's around 90 trillion in "total money" (narrow + broad money) in the world, so 1.5 quadrillion is around 16.667~ times that amount.

Again, with fiat currency inflation, implied economic growth projections and technological efficiencies to be gained, will total money be around 1.5 quadrillion dollars? Eventually, sure. Especially if you denominate this in dollars, which obviously have been devaluated to the extreme. These are huge figures, but that doesn't sound so crazy when you really think about it. Especially on a 50-100 year time horizon.

You can hardly blame someone for accepting huge speaking fees.

While I do think that the revolving door of government and private industry is a problem, I think if we set the bar too high, then no one will ever be pure enough.

How exactly would one find an experienced industry expert, especially in finance that hasn't at some point been highly paid by industry?

We could go with lifetime politicians, I guess... or academics, but we all know how the people usually respond to those types of appointees.

Are we to presume that these industry insiders were paying huge speaking fees to Janet Yellen just in case the 75 year old received another high profile political appointment?

Do companies worry about hiring a CEO who used to work for a competitor? I just don't see a problem per se unless there is evidence of undue influence.

Many people blame misinformation for the slow and steady erosion of trust in American institutions, but it’s pretty clear to everyone that there is something wrong. The system works really well for some people, but not many.

Now some otherwise disparate groups are starting to coalesce around common themes of injustice. Interesting times ahead for sure.

Remember the system always protects itself.

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