Yellen Summons Regulators to Discuss Financial Market Volatility
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
But then again, if we wanted finance experts to chair the Fed and be the treasury secretary without any prior monetary relationships with banks and hedge funds, we would probably have just some academics. A lot of academics in economics/finance get paid for legal testimony on behalf of companies and such, too.
I think most social justice advocates would agree that corruption and regulatory capture are bad. If anything, I'd expect a response more like "why are women like Yellen and Hillary Clinton being uniquely targeted with these accusations?" (whether they are or aren't). I'm not sure where the parent poster is sourcing the claimed identity-based defenses of her alleged corruption, though.
So the dilemma in the situation you describe is between whether to ignore diversity concerns and in turn be ignored, or to speak up and risk losing class solidarity. It sucks that we have to make that decision; it would be better if less-marginalized people made proactive efforts to ensure we're involved in and will explicitly benefit from initiatives or movements that implicitly aligns with our interests.
It takes oxygen away from the actual controversy and shifts the discussion to how stupid the cover is. You might even have people start arguing about gender and earnings gaps. Diversion successful.
The White House press secretary whose brother works at Citadel.
Edit: Her cousin* according to Bloomberg https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-31/the-citad...
https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/greenwichtime/obituary.asp...
> Amateur sleuths found fertile ground to fan conspiracies. They didn’t hesitate in casting Jeff Psaki, a money manager at Citadel, as proof of dark arts at the firm. It started with claims that Psaki, an ex-Goldman trader, was married to White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki. He’s not: He’s her second cousin and has never spoken to her, a person who knows him said. But on it went, ricocheting from chatboards to Twitter and beyond.
Quick, name all your second cousins!
I also wish progressives realized they were being used as tools in this battle.
Those who are already on the "team" (i.e. - they identify as a member of the party but have no particular ideology of their own) may appear swayed, but usually this is just a bad faith effort on the part of party loyalists to stifle criticism from within.
Where is the voice of the people who are not really fooled?
20-30 years ago it would have been about family values, christian values, and down with the gays. In 20-30 years it'll be something else, but what won't change is those in power stay in power.
The hypocrisy of Harris/Biden to get up and declare the system corrupt... THEY ARE THE SYSTEM.
Citadel's a market maker that processes a lot of transactions in pretty much every stock in the universe. It'd be like me saying that someone with ties to power company shouldn't investigate the mafia, because the mafia regularly used electricity.
https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/articles/2021-01-27/hed...
This is exactly why we need an unbiased source to look into this matter.
FTA:
> "Melvin Capital has repositioned our portfolio over the past few days. We have closed out our position in GME (GameStop)," the spokesman said in a statement.
"Yellen has requested an ethics waiver to hold the meeting, a Treasury spokeswoman said, confirming a Reuters report."
I don't see it as a clear conflict of interest that needs recusal out the gate. How much is that $700,000 to Yellen? The payments are done. What other speaking engagements has she made and how much did they account for? I remember when Tom Wheeler was put in to lead the FCC, and people were very much against him because of his ties to the industry, but by the time he was done, people had turned around on him.
So, here you have a case where someone isn't hiding something, is asking for a waiver, and being up front about this, and you are calling this open corruption.
Really? Open corruption? This means they've actively done something wrong, or corrupt, and I don't see that here.
Should this be looked at and watched? Sure.
Does that mean there is outright "corruption" here? No.
Citadel has a good interest stake in Melvin Capital: https://www.wsj.com/articles/citadel-point72-to-invest-2-75-...
Melvin Capital is the hedge fund that's directly hurting from retail investor actions. That's an easy google you can do yourself.
Citadel stands to lose quite a bit of money from retail investors now and potential in the future. So them giving a regulatory authority 700k to talk about the issue... is it really hard to imagine which way Yellen is going to lean on this one?
What kind of question is this? It's two-thirds of a million dollars. You are treating it like they bought her some chicken nuggets after soccer practice.
If that amount is really such a pittance, she should pay it back to Citadel.
I can't even think of a way that attitude makes sense.
Everyone in the other comments is just assuming this as true, I don't see the sexism argument anywhere in what the press secretary said.
Anyone got a source?
> The Chicago-based hedge fund paid Yellen $292,500 for a speech on Oct. 17, 2019, $180,000 for one on Dec. 3, 2019, and $337,500 to speak at a series of webinars held from Oct. 9-27, 2020.
[1]: https://dailycaller.com/2021/01/28/janet-yellen-gamestop-cit...
Watch the docu on OxyCotin. Doctors who made the most in sales for the Sacklers got paid hundreds of thousands to give lectures.. that literally nobody attended. They all kept giving the lectures, time after time.
This is a matter of public record, and she was made $7M in speaking fees in the past two years. It is a small percentage of her income, and not worth more a small fraction the future value of her reputation. The idea Yellen - one of just three living Fed chairs and one of the most influential figures in economics - would do political favors for $300k is honestly ridiculous.
I have asked it elsewhere, but if you want to prevent this, you are making it illegal or disqualifying. I would personally like to know where the line would be drawn for public service. It seems like having an employment relationship would be far more influencing than a speaking engagement. It is important to emphasize this speech is disclosed and public knowledge.
It's just a reminder - when it comes to time make that big decision, hey, remember who your friends are.
I of course think it should be both illegal and disqualifying. The line is very clear - reception or accepting the promise of large sums of money should be disqualifying for positions of high office. Simple as.
It’s obvious that we don’t have the right incentive structure with the SEC, either. If you can make 20x more using the skills you’d need to investigate companies trading instead, the talent pool is reduced to those motivated by power/ideology. I’ve always thought financial regulators should have some kind of incentive structure that closes this gap but it’s not clear how to do that without skewing the enforcement priorities.
If Yellen were mostly interested in money, she has already chaired the Federal Reserve. 700K is a pittance compared to the millions she would earn in the private sector. Yet people begrudge her the 220K she does earn. Treasury Secretary and Chair of the Fed would be a multi million dollar a year jobs in the private sector.
700k might be a small sum (I don't think it is, but ok) for her, but she still accepted it.
Her taking up that offer is no surprise.
The type of people who would overlook crimes by others because the company that the criminals worked for once paid them to give a speech & attend a mixer is probably not the type that would work at the SEC for any meaningful length of time. The pay disparity is just too great.
Malicious people work for the SEC just long enough to understand the inner workings and/or collect critical intel that they can leverage into private sector jobs.
If Yellen lacked scruples, she would have gone into the private sector after leaving the Fed. But instead of collection a probably 8-figure paycheck, she opted to continue to work in government. Which indicates to me, that she takes pride in doing her job well.
1. She did go into the private sector. She got paid for speeches. That's not a public sector job.
2. It's not mutually exclusive to enjoy public sector work while also lacking scruples. The list of corrupt politicians is endless.
There are many people in this thread and others across the internet and media who are talking about the conflict of interest. However, there's little showing what potentially bad things she is doing.
Yellen has lots of experience with the regulatory and finance institutions and their inner workings. For sharing her perspectives on how things work, what pressures they face, and how best to engage with them, she should be paid quite well. That's what these Citadel talks look like, at least until someone can connect the dots better than they have been connected.
For example, what nefarious plot is there? What regulator capture is she engaging in? Somewhere else in the thread someone mentioned car import issues with Reagan; where is the equivalent with Yellen?
Until there is a salient point to be made about her conflicts of interest, doesn't it make sense to give her the benefit of the doubt?
Corporate America has taught us that even the potential appearance of bribes is a bad thing for the random employee.
We can’t accept a $30 gift card to Amazon without potentially having to talk to HR.
What you’re suggesting is that someone like Yellen is 50,000 times less interesting to consider as a possible point of corruption.
We're talking about that amount of money for just a few days of "work".
> Yet people begrudge her the 220K she does earn. Treasury Secretary and Chair of the Fed would be a multi million dollar a year jobs in the private sector.
That doesn't make any sense. These jobs don't exist in the private sector.
In any case, Treasury Secretary is not a lifetime gig. At most 8 years, probably less. And then Yellen will go back to the private sector, to cash in even more. These are ongoing, transactional relationships. Think of these speaking fees as a down payment.
Hmm?
Yellen was in public positions from 1977-1980, 1994-1999, and 2004-2018. She was a professor at Harvard from 1971-1976 and at UC Berkeley from 1980-1994. She's certainly made a lot of money from these sorts of speaking fees and there's criticism to be had, but she's spent far more time in academic or public positions than she has "in the private sector".
I don't think she's the same case as, e.g., someone who was employed by an investment bank for a long time, takes a federal position for a year or two, then goes back to working in banking.
True. Yellen clearly prefers public sector work.
However, I think there's a false dichotomy being presented. There's no inherent conflict between working in the public sector and being corrupt. The list of corrupt politicians is endless. Why not do what you love and cash in? Best of both worlds, from the corrupt politician's perspective.
If you have complexity you will have corruption. The more complexity, the more corruption. Some complexity is necessary, but most is not.
So instead of simplifying the system, you have to hire people that understand it to police it. Unfortunately the competent financial police are paid a small fraction of what they'd be worth in private industry, so now you have a mix of altruistic, incompetent, and opportunistic people. The latter pretending to be the former.
Heck, just any active codebase. Complexity is the default and is very very hard to fight.
You can a) reduce the incentives for abuse, b) reduce the complexity needed to hide abuses, c) both.
Since government is basically power, the incentives to abuse that power always exist. So look for complex government systems and you will inevitable find abuse (if you can navigate the system's complexity).
We need decentralized economics and finance.
Perhaps I'm being too conspiratorial or cynical but it seems to me that this is the polite understanding between business and those with political power. We'll pay you a lot of money for very little work if you pass legislation that we like.
https://www.cnn.com/2016/02/05/politics/hillary-clinton-bill...
It's obvious these companies expect some sort of political benefit for paying these outrageous speaking fees, the part we don't know is to what extent there is an "agreement".
I will concede the agreements may not be communicated in any way, and just based on expectations. However, these fees would not continue to be paid if expectations did not continue to be mostly met.
I suppose that's technically true
No need to doubt yourself on this one :D
In a sense I feel like this kind of corruption is a bit like short selling. You perform a corrupt act in the present with a tacit understanding that, at some point in the future, the beneficiaries of that act will pay you back.
The fact that this is a temporal play makes it seem like its not corrupt, but in fact all it does is put white gloves on the same kind of dirty deeds that happen in poorer countries all the time.
Really its not different, you just choose to respect this process and choose to dismiss another country’s process as “corrupt bribery”.
What’s happening in poorer countries is often just as roundabout.
It feels to me like this type of corruption is a temporal play in which you "lend" your influence in the present to somebody. Using your influence they pass legislation/regulation etc. that yields them lots of money in the future. Once you leave office, the people that you lent your influence to will pay you back with the proceeds they obtained while they were making use of your influence.
The more "standard" type of corruption (the kind people in nice suits usually think of when they say "corruption") doesn't involve a temporal play. You get money in the present for using your influence directly in order to benefit the people who paid you, also in the present/near future.
Perhaps my analogy to short selling is not fully accurate, but this is kind of how it feels to me.
A borrows a share from B, sells it to C D borrows the share sold to C, sells it to E.
The same share was borrowed twice and sold twice. That has nothing to do with naked shorting.
Player C thinks that they own a real share, but they own thin air.
My example was not naked short selling. At the end of the transactions, only E has a real share. B and C both have an IOU for a share.... they can’t loan it out again or sell it unless they recall the loan (which they can do at any time).
If you think this is a Ponzi scheme, just wait until you hear about fractional reserve banking! Every single bank loans out money it doesn’t ‘have’.... it loans out money account holders put in. That means there is more money in circulation than actually exists, because the person whose money was loaned out still has their full balance in their bank account.
You can read about stock lending here: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-to-shake-loose-change-...
To your question of “if both people demand their share back they will not get it”.... this is exactly what a short squeeze is. You are right, if the lenders demand their shares back, the short sellers have to scramble to get them back... they have to buy a share on the open market to sell.
Now, in normal times a short seller would just borrow a share from someone else to return to the person demanding it back, because normally there is always someone willing to lend their shares (for more and more interest as demand goes up)... of course, if all the shareholders refuse to loan out their share, shorts are screwed... and will have to pay crazy amounts of money to buy back shares that are really expensive.
This is what wallstreetbets is trying to do... get all the shares owned by their users who all refuse to loan them out, driving the price ridiculously high.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1994/12/23/g...
What do you think Yellen is going to do 4-8 years from now?
Like, you have executives at some companies serving on boardships in unrelated industries. They aren't working two jobs.
What she did was give glorified TED Talks to a group. It's a performance.
Even more reason to think that it's "selling out" and not "real" work.
It's also possible that she's more valuable to Citadel in her current role. They might not want to remove her from it.
No one gets into public service in order to enrich others, but one day people wake up and find themselves open to a little bit of corruption.
https://www.npr.org/2016/08/17/490102648/the-clintons-wrote-...
> "The Clintons have always been very careful to walk about two inches inside the line,"
Obama very publicly "held politicians accountable" with the STOCK act and then very privately pulled it's teeth a couple months later (keeping it technically illegal while making it all but impossible to investigate).
Politicians should not be permitted to pass legislation concerning their conduct. Perhaps it should be put to state and national ballots as appropriate with a direct vote from the people.
The events that speakers are tied to would have zero attendees without big names attached to them.
I don’t see hackernews decry tech speakers who get paid to speak?
Without the ethics waiver there would be no hearing on Robinhood at all.
If so, and if they don't recuse themselves, there would indeed be a problem. Fortunately, tech speakers don't have anywhere near that kind of direct power.
If company y pays the manager in charge of purchasing at company x $600,000 to speak, then they bid on contracts with company x, there would also be a problem.
There's a limited supply of living former presidents. Far fewer than the number of institutions looking to up their prestige by getting a former president to give a speech. How much do you think it should cost to get a former president to give a talk?
Here's another argument. Non-political celebrities also have very high speaking fees (or the equivalent). Yet obviously these celebrities aren't being tacitly bribed. What is your explanation for that?
That's not the right question. The question is whether ex-Presidents ought to accept these bribes. Compare the post-Presidencies of Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, starkly different.
> Yet obviously these celebrities aren't being tacitly bribed. What is your explanation for that?
Celebrities aren't in positions of public service, so the whole concept of a "bribe" doesn't apply.
To add to this, we should also be holding Presidents to a higher ethics standard than, say, Kim Kardashian.
Celebrities are different because they make tons of money and are business propositions in and of themselves, meaning their star power could bring immense attraction to the event, which is part of what commencement speakers are for.
One could take this further and apply it to the entire concept of a revolving door; if an official can make a career out of lobbying and consulting after leaving public office, they'll be incentivized to prioritize future employers over the public interest.
Realistically, it's difficult to fully remove perverse incentives and still be able to attract talent (this applies to technical recruiting as well!). But there still need to be systems of accountability. Unfortunately, with two-party non-proportional representation, and a limited opportunity for voters to provide referendums on the corruption of party members separate from their policy viewpoints, there are many layers of insulation that prevent people from being held to account.
This is not necessarily true. The Clintons, Bushes, and Obamas are like one big happy family. Trump is the exception because he pissed off everyone, but even he used to be friendly with the Clintons.
Anyway this misses the point: in general, the system of buying political favors only works when political favors are repaid, and everyone operating in that system knows it.
https://www.thoughtco.com/former-presidents-speaking-fees-33... Former President Jimmy Carter "seldom accepts speaking fees," The Associated Press wrote in 2002, "and when he does he typically donates the proceeds to his charitable foundation."
> Clinton runs one of the most successful charitable orgs in the world.
So does Bill Gates. So what? Clinton also made more than $100 million for himself in speaking fees.
Nothing. Or, on second thought, maybe a large donation to a children's hospital. I would expect a public servant from the highest office to be committed to public service. The presidency shouldn't be monetized, but if a former president really needs money they could always sell a book. That doesn't create any perverse incentives like speaking fees.
Public figures don't get paid for TV or newspaper interviews, journalistic ethics explicitly forbids it, because paying people for being the source of information is seen as inherently corrupting.
Presidents have a 200k/yr lifetime pension that's pegged to inflation, plus a $1 million/yr travel budget and a fully funded and staffed personal office. Bill Clinton has been paid over $20 million by the US government since he left office through these programs. While in office presidents earn 400k, with all their living expenses paid for separately, meaning they get about 1.6 million dollars per four-year term straight into their savings accounts. Many of them make millions from sales of their memoirs alone. There is no reason for them to be demanding additional millions in exchange for giving a ten minute pep talk to a hedge fund except as a backdoor for corruption.
I don't see how this follows from your argument. As you acknowledge Clinton has a massive platform whenever he wants his views aired, and plenty of normal people are willing to pay his publisher money to read his book. Why would he fly to some hedge fund's dinner party to talk to a handful of half cut money-movers for free? I'd say that would be more suspicious, frankly.
Like, the guy clearly doesn't need money, he can do whatever he wants. There is no opportunity cost for him, he doesn't need to make appearances to put food on the table, the financial difference between a $300,000 appearance at Goldman and a free appearance at a kid's birthday party is essentially nothing to him.
If he thinks it's fun to hang out with hedge fund managers, he can do that, good for him, who cares. But them giving him tens of millions of dollars, on top of the tens of millions of dollars that the US government is already giving him, (which by the way is supposed to exist to disincentivize Presidents from seeking gifts or employment after leaving office), is extremely suspicious especially in light of the fact that his crowning achievement in office was deregulating their entire industry.
Nobody who charges six figure fees for speaking engagements needs the money to put food on the table. Getting paid silly money for a night of patronising some organization you wouldn't otherwise care less about is an ego thing, and plenty of stupidly rich people enjoy their egos being stroked by speaking fees without having any other favours to offer. I mean, some stupidly rich people still enjoy making obviously corrupt manoeuvres too, but that's not necessary to explain why ex-POTUSes and Hollywood stars start being interested in being private party entertainment when the sixth zero is added to the bill.
And literally nobody would say "that's fine, he probably just thinks its fun to hang out with hedge fund managers" if the guy who repealed Glass Steagall insisted he was donating his time and reputation to helping hedge funds impress their LPs. Especially not if foreign telephone manufacturers wanting him to do a keynote speech were still willing to offer massive sums of money.
After their last term, their official political career is basically over and almost anything they know worth telling is classified.
It seems hard to justify increasing prices after the fact outside graft.
Celebrities are bribed, they're called endorsements. Former presidents are worth less and less as they lose their connections. Their price tag depends on how much power they still wield....which is why Clinton and Obama still command high prices.
George Washington was a big supporter of canal-building. To honor Washington, the Virginia legislature decided in 1795 to gift him shares in two canal companies it had established. Washington agonized over what to do, because accepting the shares would give the impression that he was using the Presidency for his own personal gain, while rejecting them would be insulting. He also wanted to publicly show his support for the canal projects. He ended up requesting that the shares to be used to fund a university and a seminary.
Washington's status at this point was already secure enough that nobody would have seriously accused him of corruption, but he was extremely wary of doing anything that could in any way be perceived as self-interested. The fact that former politicians are taking massive speaking fees from businesses that their policies affected looks corrupt, and that in itself is already bad enough.
Also, Yellen isn't a former president, she is a former fed chair. It's not even remotely the same line of work.
She was when she made those speaking fees. Do you know she planned to reenter politics? Did Reagan or Bill Clinton have plans to reenter politics after their presidencies?
>We often pay bills after recieving service. Quite normal.
Except we agree to those bills beforehand. This would require that these payments be guaranteed years before they are made. Often times the leadership of these companies changes so that expands the list of people who need to be involved in this conspiracy. When the number of people involved in a conspiracy go up, the likelihood of that conspiracy being revealed goes up.
Once again I will ask is there any evidence for this conspiracy beyond these circumstantial connections?
I'm sure those who paid them did too.
> When the number of people involved in a conspiracy go up, the likelihood of that conspiracy being revealed goes up.
And when they're all involved, nobody is left to care, investigate or prosecute.
> Once again I will ask is there any evidence for this conspiracy beyond these circumstantial connections?
The evidence is everywhere. They do favors for specific people and groups and get paid by those people and groups. It's really not complicated.
So everyone in government is in on this conspiracy?
>The evidence is everywhere. They do favors for specific people and groups and get paid by those people and groups. It's really not complicated.
That is circumstantial evidence. Is there any evidence that doesn’t equate to tying yarn on a cork board?
Some people work at Citadel for years after graduating from top colleges without making $700k in total income, yet Citadel shelled out that amount over the course of two years for a bunch of speeches from an altogether boring economist.
Janet Yellen is a laughably bad speaker. See for yourself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YAEHJvNscs
Now she's the Treasury Secretary and she has power and authority to manage a situation that directly affects Citadel. They make money off Robinhood. They back Melvin. And they benefit from a regulatory environment that is all too forgiving to market-makers.
People like Yellen are not paid for their oratory skill (and oratory skill is not something that is particularly valuable in her current or previous roles). They are paid because they are smart, accomplished, respected, and well known. When an organization has them come speak, people want to come listen and it lends the hosting organization prestige.
The regulations currently protect market-makers like Citadel from having to adhere to many of the rules that other market participants have to follow. This includes the locate requirement of Reg SHO, as well as the buy-in procedure for failure to deliver. How are we supposed to trust Yellen to regulate one of her own biggest customers (maybe the biggest)?
It's an absolute joke to pay Yellen six figures to give a speech, and that's why people are thinking, "wait a sec, this is bribery right?" Are you suggesting that Yellen should get paid because she is "smart, accomplished, respected, and well known"? The impropriety of these lavish payments comes from the fact that she's a cabinet secretary expected to keep these very firms in line.
FINRA doesn't let vendors give their individual clients gifts of more than a hundred dollars per year. Yet the current TREASURY SECRETARY raked in $7mm in the past two years for giving bad speeches and somehow we're supposed to just be cool with that? Give me a break. She shouldn't be involved with this.
I also said in my top comment that these speaking fees are ridiculous. I don't think they are good use of money. However it is quite a leap to go from these being a poor use of money to them being obvious bribery. Plenty of people and organizations spend money on stupid things. This includes speaking fees for non-politicians. All sorts of famous people from actors to philanthropists to technologists get paid to speak in front of crowds. Are they all forms of bribery?
If you are going to accuse people of corruption, you need to have evidence that is stronger than the existence of a motive, which is basically all you have currently.
> We are talking about the general practice and not specifically Yellen.
> Are they all forms of bribery?
> If you are going to accuse people of corruption, you need to have
> evidence that is stronger than the existence of a motive, which is
> basically all you have currently.
Read (b)(1) here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/208
Then, read (d) here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/5/2635.502
Yellen disclosed the sources of her honoraria and acknowledged a financial interest (here: https://extapps2.oge.gov/201/Presiden.nsf/PAS+Index/18A4D129...). She received written permission based on the determination "that the interest is not so substantial as to be deemed likely to affect the integrity" of her work. The question isn't whether she has committed a crime (she has not), nor whether she has motive to unfairly benefit Citadel (she does). Rather, the question is whether that financial interest is substantial enough to likely affect her work (a discretionary call already made by a government official), and whether the process itself is fair to other market participants (I contend that it is not).
No doubt it my mind, WSB and other agencies are "laundering" political kickbacks through speaking fees. It's long been an open secret/assumption in the industry.
I co-founded a startup that published speaking fees, the IASB tried to find an angle to come after us but failed. Eventually proxies came after us to try and intimidate us from publishing fee and speaking calendars for politicians and pundits.
Wow. Can you tell more?
Bright lights tend to disinfect.
If something like this could be coordinated globally, it would be a great way to put pressure on power.
Wow what happened today, WallStreetBets is now an official agency paying kickbacks?
This wouldn't even be an argument if Citadel wasn't operating in the the market as if it were a casino. Yellen is extremely talented and an expert in her field. She should be paid for those skills and knowledge.
This idea that public officials shouldn't be participating in the society that we have created and that they should be held up to the Standards of Mother Teresa or Ghandi is idiotic, IMO.
The mere fact that we are even discussing this is ridiculous, and instead should be discussing what do we expect from our markets. Should they be a free market that should resemble the "fundamental" price of an asset or is it just a casino where everyone is in search of a greater fool and acting accordingly? It seems more and more likely that if we allow for it to behave like B, we're not going to get A.
I don't think so. I think this is a way to hold quote unquote liberals to a higher standard than everyone else.
I'm aware the term "swamp" may stir up some Trump era animosity, but this is the definition of a member of "the swamp". They're literally everywhere in positions of power.
Politician/authority figure gets paid exorbitant amounts of money for inane services by entities who directly profited from contested policy enactments. That's not a conspiracy. That's just bribery with extra steps to make it "legal". Just because some people dont like it or embarrasses some authority figures, doesn't make it "some crackpot conspiracy". Just like throwing the word nazi around was a craze just recently for anyone that doesn't agree with your general life views.
The people's responsibility is to point out conflicts of interest and potential corruption. No politician or authority figure should be safe from that, no matter their party or demographic.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-03-01/insura...
Don't call your bribes 'success fees', call them 'speaking fees'.
I'll also note that you include a citation about the Clinton's speaking fees, you don't cite anything to support or argue that Clinton speeches led to the repeal of Glass-Steagall, despite your implicit connection there. I write this as no Clinton fan BTW, in part for this repeal.
It's easy to get angry over the nebulous concept of creeping corruption in our political systems. This is because getting into the nitty-gritty details and actually determining which particular speech is a bribe and which is not is difficult and boring. In the long term, I suggest that this sort of anger can lead to a political apathy which is damaging to a functioning democracy.
Now, with all that said, Yellen should probably recuse herself given the recency and amount of these talks. Independent of whether or not she was actually corrupt, it's a bad look.
None of this is proof but to me it paints a clear picture of regulatory capture and corruption.
going to guess you are missing the `m` from `$150m`
So have I, just in free beer!
As a counterpoint, we have seen far worse corruption in broad daylight and it's not coming from people who took speaking fees.
May I further suggest that the decades-long propaganda campaign against the Clintons has worked wonderfully and you are possibly a victim of it. And not just you, but millions of people.
It may not have been corruption but it certainly has that appearance to me. The Obama administration famously never prosecuted the finance industry. He's now making millions a year. Reagan got millions to visit Japan shortly after leaving office. The leaders of our government are getting rich after being in government. I think it's corruption.
Much of the investigations against the Clintons have been political theater. It's hard to prove the sort of corruption I'm pointing out. It's also in no politician's best interest to do so. They make millions after service so their economic interest is to investigate inane accusations rather than real corruption.
It's an extremely low bar for what you could consider corruption. Maybe coziness at worst. Like would these policies simply not have happened without speaking fees?
It could, of course, all be as you say and these are just instances of public servants doing what is in the public good who go on to get enriched by the industries their policies benefited. I don't think so though.
I don't know about Yellen's personal finances, but the chairman/woman of the Fed makes $203k/yr. I bet 50%+ of the people reading my comment make more money than that, and unless my comment is graced by a well-known CEO I sincerely doubt any of you have as important a job.
Maybe if we want to hold our public servants (generals, commissioners, congressmen, secretaries of x, etc) to higher ethical standards we should compensate them well enough that a speaking fee like this is "more money" rather than "help pay off my mortgage".
Unlikely, according to the BLS the 2019 Median Pay for software engineers in the US is $107,510 per year
https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...
It probably sometimes happens that speaking fees are paid as a bribe, but that's illegal and also not specific to speaking fees (similar popular schemes are to hire the person as consultant, or to buy something from him for a much higher price than the real value). It also raises the same red flags, when it turns out that the speaking fees were far above market value.
Unless that was the case here (I don't know how much other speakers are paid at Citadel), it seems premature to assume nefarious behavior.
Can you give some examples?
Corporate speaking fees are Cameo for very rich people. They pay a less-than-rounding-error amount of money to have someone famous show up and interact with them. Similar to me paying Perez Hilton $50 on Cameo to record a message for my buddies. It doesn't make a lot of financial sense to pay someone famous to talk to you. but people do it anyway, because people pay for rare experiences.
Brief association with fame has a direct financial value, it always has. You don't need a conspiracy to explain that.
It’s not similar if the person in power enacts laws that directly benefit the person who paid for the speech.
Association with fame has relatively small value.
Speeches are the best way to bribe someone. Once they give the speech, it's "services rendered". There's no shady money transfers to explain, since it's all out in the open. There's no risk of fraud. There's no way to be caught in a lie, because the entire payment is pegged to physically speaking in front of a group, which they actually did do. The only questionable thing is the amount paid, which is subjective.
At Yellen's level, access to information is what has the most value. That's how I would bribe someone like that. No paper trail
A lot better than prison though.
It's hard to look at the past decade or two and think there was a hinderance to corrupt acts. Sure, people complain but rich people got their tax breaks, Wall St. gets friendly policy, and mega corps get bailed out. The system is clearly working for those involved.
In other words, it's perfectly legal bribery, and thus the smartest way to bribe someone. Just like political campaign contributions.
Why risk illegal bribery when you can go the safe route, where everyone knows, but nobody goes to jail?
I don't feel it's any different than writing a book.
Bernie Sanders made good money off books: https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/13/politics/bernie-sanders-milli...
Bush's speeches, for reference: https://abcnews.go.com/Business/president-lady-bush-profit-s...
Just a local example. Nordic Business Forum[1] has had for example Barrack Obama as speaker. They have maybe 7k visitors, ticket prices are around 1k-3k€/person. They tend to be sold out well in advance.
Few years old list of per speech prices for high profile speakers [2]. For example Obama $400k, Tony Blair $200k.
[1] https://www.nbforum.com/ [2] https://www.thestreet.com/investing/highest-paid-public-spea...
...and if Reagan had instead imposed tariffs on imported cars, he probably would have later been paid to give speeches by groups that liked the tariffs.
That's how it will be for nearly every consequential Presidential decision other than those few that have broad bipartisan support and little controversy.
Man, a whole 150 dollars, those Clintons must be making bank! :P
I really don't understand what people want from her.
Yes
There aren't many of them so the is a resource scarcity. I'm not trying to suggest 700k in speaking fees isn't a bribe, but how much of a bribe is it?
I'd speak at a single conference for $1000, her $130k fee means her time is 130x more valuable as mine and I think that could be true.
There should be no going rate for a former fed chairman. It's a position of public trust that should not lead to personal profit.
We can't go back in time and pass ethics laws.
Is a position as a lecture of Economics at Harvard considering working for personal profit? Writing books on subjects that they are experts in? How about writing for the NYTimes? Appearing on TV? What about if they did all those things before taking a government job?
If your answer is yes to those things, then taking a high-level government position becomes impossible for anyone working class. Since you believe that the position bars them from any worthwhile future employment, they have to be independently wealthy before entering government service.
I personally enjoy reading the works of Ben Bernanke and think that he should be allowed to continue his work in economics despite having held a top position at the federal government. He's intelligent, insightful, and a good teacher.
Before I answer, are you seriously arguing that taking a job as a professor is the same as getting paid 1 million dollars for ~10 hours of work?
The debate seems to be over the price. $700k / yr from lecturing to hedge funds is bad but $150k / yr to do the same at Harvard is good?
(2) Her salary is in line with others in her position and is given in exchange for doing actual work.
(3) Harvard is not in a position to directly profit from potentially privileged information leaking out in her lectures to students
(4) Harvard is not in a position to directly benefit from Yellen influencing current government regulators/policy makers
(5) Harvard is not in a position to directly benefit from Yellen taking a subsequent regulatory/policy position in government
They don't? Harvard's $40 billion endowment is larger than Citadel's assets managed. Harvard is a hedge fund that does education as a side hustle.
If you want former fed chairs to never work in the industry again you're going to have to significantly increase compensation and make it a pension for life even after they retire. And the fact of the matter is that's just not how the system works right now so "well maybe we SHOULD tear down the whole system and do it differently" is not really a constructive point in the discussion, it's just a childish tantrum. If you think that's how the system should work, go pass some legislation.
Because she is already working for the state? If I was constantly holding talks for the competition instead of working I would get into a lot of trouble with my boss. I know this is different for politicians and some other government positions, to the point where in some countries a) they get a full living wage for doing literally nothing and b) get a bonus every time they show up(with show up meaning their presence was recorded for an attosecond that day). Its one of the reasons I consider the government of my home country a bad joke.
* Fit in a few speeches * Be worth $700,000 * Not be confidential, go against FTC rules, or raise ethical concerns * Isn't known to other researchers or experts (that could actually provide a research paper with supporting materials)
Further, is this the market rate for other financial experts, or just ones that have access to power and the ability to influence? Are there any financial experts or academics being compensated $50,000/hour to speak and don't have influence or power over financial organizations?
Why is it so hard to comprehend that some people have issue with government employees diving back and forth from regulation of entities to taking large sums of money from them?
Seriously though, why is that the case? If she's a public servant, she could donate her time to talks easily. When you're being paid that much money to speak, then are asked to sit in judgment on this company, are you really expecting her to bite the hand that feeds her? *At the absolute best it puts her in a terribly awkward position. At worst it's bribery.
This amounts to an argument that people can't go back and forth between the private and public spheres. To be fair, this is something some people believe, and was very visible in the case of Ajit Pai outrage. But if that's what we're saying, let's be clear about it.
I just also think they should recuse themselves from an investigation when those whom they've had significant dealings with are being investigated. $700k for 3 speaking gigs, we're not talking about a CEO she had lunch with one time, there is a significant business relationship there. That relationship might not affect Mrs. Yellen's judgment, but if she doesn't absolutely drop the hammer on Citadel it at least looks like bribery. The very fact that the question is raised is the problem.
Or I suppose you could say that anyone who has held a government position, left it, and then ever made money in the private sector is ineligible for future government work. In effect all this does is just bar past officials from being elected again. This again reduces the pool of qualified talent by a lot. Janet Yellen is probably the most qualified person in the country to be the fed chair, it seems like she should be allowed to imo.
Citadel's fees are among the highest. See for yourself:
https://extapps2.oge.gov/201/Presiden.nsf/PAS+Index/C22B882B...
> she might as well resign being treasury secretary
If she can't disentangle herself from the interests of her benefactors, then yeah. Maybe she should resign.
Oh, if she's still receiving money from Citadel, I agree.
If she's not still receiving money from Citadel, I don't see the relevance. I would expect anyone qualified for the job to have made paid speeches at any number of important financial institutions over the years. It wouldn't be in our best interests as citizens to have them recuse every time a matter concerning one of them arises.
Bill Clinton also had his share of critics because of that.
Is there real evidence of paid speeches being bribery? As others have said about 100k-500k is the going rate for corporate speeches from athletes, actors, etc.
politicians are supposed to be public servants.
I hear you can get Zuckerberg or Gates for that kind of money, but they make more than that in an hour just from their existing wealth.
But $300k is not outside the ballpark for what people make for speaking. It's fine to be outraged by that, but it is fair to call it "market".
The only reason outrage seems justified is that the demographics of those that can charge $300k a speech appears overwhelmingly dominated by government officials.
I'm open to being shown otherwise with explicit links.
Citadel probably paid way more for their employees to listen than for her to speak, in terms of wages.
I could be wrong here, what do I know. But that's my read on the situation, and it's why this sort of thing doesn't bother me that much.
They're often interesting, but they're fairly anodyne: a famous author talking about their recent book, a CEO talking about their successes or new focus on sustainability/diversity/etc, some broad perspective on current events. You can see how Goldman folks might benefit a little bit from knowing about (say) the likely timeline for vaccine roll-outs, but you could get much of the same info from an hour of NPR.
However, meeting the person seems like a nice perk or recruiting/marketing tool.
- all have an interest in finance
- are varying ages (so may not enjoy the same music)
- are from various countries (so may not be into the same sports)
and you have the budget, someone like Yellen is absolutely a substitute good for e.g. having a private Ludacris concert. It's entertainment and continuing education in one. Plus your staff get to brag about the private event to their millionaire peers who did not get that perk.
I'm not inviting Alec Baldwin for his knowledge / advice.
Are you saying Yellen is not being paid for her knowledge / advice?
I am struggling to think that there are any examples that you won't dismiss, no matter how applicable.
Dan Schulman, Dara Khosrowshahi, Dr. Helmut Panke. And now I'm bored of scrolling through.
There is another bin that is "paid for brand-building advertisement." - i.e. celebrities.
The proposition is that ex-government officials are just getting paid market rate for her knowledge and insight.
If that's the case, it should be trivially easy to find non government officials people getting paid $300k a speech for their knowledge.
You've identified listings - which is better than I thought there would be ! - but not sales.
Yellen earned $7.2m in two years. If all three of those combined earned half as much in speaking fees over that same time, I'd be definitely convinced that it's ho-hum
If you're a motivated research reading this interested in answering this empirically, I'd suggest trying to find organizations that both pay this level of fees and have to disclose it to the public when they do (I'm hoping this might be the case for public companies under SEC regs, but that's just a hope)
People spent the energy to provide sources. Are you spending the same time?
What sources provides you the confidence to say that some demographics are "overwhelmingly dominated"...?
And that's exactly the bias I'm trying to eliminate with my question.
It doesn't seem like a crazy idea for a corporate retreat-style event. Have a day full of internal presentations reviewing the last year, describing future initiatives, etc. After dinner, Yellen talks, telling some stories about her time on the Fed, working with Clinton, and maybe caps it off with a section about "Future Challenges." People like hearing/meeting celebrities, so it caps the day off nicely while being reasonably educational too.
For that audience, a top economist could be a good choice for the same money.
Links to that actually happening is exactly the kind of evidence I'm asking for.
Links to that actually happening *for non government officials* is exactly the kind of evidence I'm asking for.
Edit: here's a link, since it only takes 10 seconds to find: https://www.allamericanspeakers.com/discover-your-speaker.ph...
Notable: Ava DuVernay (film director) starts at $200k. Tim Ferriss says $100k-$200k. Viola Davis: $200k and up. I'm certain that none of these people are obligated to these prices; if Citadel is buying, anyone would be silly to not raise the price. Conversely, all are certainly able to make speeches at discounted rates or gratis to schools, nonprofits, etc.
Also notable (because it refutes your priors) is a lack of public officials, or those who have held public office.
Edit (again): Here are private economists who make bank for speeches: https://www.allamericanspeakers.com/searchresults/economist#...
Sort by price and you'll see that people do hire economists to speak for six figures, even if they have no nexus to government. Yellen is higher-profile than most of these, and again anyone would be foolhardy to not double their rate for Citadel.
Here's an article about them: Matthew Mcconughey got $135k for one at the University of Houston; Katie Courik got $110k for speaking at the University of Oklahoma in 2006. Crucially, the article notes that a) fees are often confidential, but can go up to half a million dollars(!) and b) schools try to bargain them down.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/04/02/matthew-mccon...
Many universities also have "lecture funds" with pretty hefty budgets. I was not privy to the exact numbers, but assuming they run at cost, ticket price*capacity suggests some people are commanding six figures.
Here's Dan Schulman at Goldman Sachs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4q_jVu5T80g
Or at a conference that runs $2300-$7000/head: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4q_jVu5T80g
This is admittedly a little bit murky, since some of these appearances might be part of the person's "day job": Helmut Panke talked at a bunch of auto shows about BWM and its new products. The ones I linked above, however, seem like they're probably not.
Is the current market rate for a speech $290k? And what are exactly the goods object of the transaction?
The goods object of the transaction is "continuing education perk for 500 highly-paid professionals." If I put 500 staff in a room and want to treat them, this is a nice perk that's not something they can buy on their own (even though many are millionaires).
Given this, Yellen should be getting $20,000 per speech, which would align way more realistically with expectations.
Treasury ethics attorneys have given Yellen flexibility to work on any related markets or broad financial services sector issues, with no limits on current or future matters, the Treasury official said. She may need to seek further authorization to deal with specific firms she listed.
In the memo granting Yellen permission to call the meeting of regulators, a Treasury ethics official, Brian Sonfield, said it would be "difficult, if not impossible" for Yellen to recuse herself from matters involving market volatility.
"You are the Secretary of the Treasury, the duties of which require you to be involved in a broad array of matters focused on these sectors," Sonfield wrote.
"Issues relating to these sectors could arise at any time without the opportunity for consultation with the ethics office," and "argue in favor of prior authorization."
source: https://www.streetinsider.com/Reuters/Exclusive%3A+Treasurys...
Do you see the problem? She is so trusted as an expert that people have given her authorisation to involve herself in matters related to firms she just took money from, regardless of the obvious incentives and conflicts of interest. Maybe you don't think those incentives or conflicts are a big deal, in which case I've got a bridge to sell you.
Isn’t seeking a waiver doing just that?
But delivering a speech that she may have delivered in other venues does not strike me as necessarily of conflict. I do think the ethics office should review after the fact and raise any concerns that arise, but generally I think we as citizens should be afforded the benefit of her expertise more often than not.
> delivering a speech that she may have delivered in other venues does not strike me as necessarily of conflict
This argument totally ignores the fact that the conflict of interest arises from the transaction, not from the content of her speech.
Pretty much. I think there should be a significant cool down period (let's say 5 years or so) after leaving a top public service or political position before you can make money from the private sector you were supposed to oversee. As far as I know something like that already applies to people who retire from the military and want to transition to a public civilian position.
On a tangent, something similar happened with a Canadian Charity called WE [1] and them being chosen to run a billion dollar grant program for Canadian students during covid. It later came out that the charity had paid speaking/appearance fees to the PM's family as well as to the finance minister at the time. After enough outcry from the media + opposition + people, the finance minister resigned and WE was stripped of the contract.
If Citadel accounted for 70% of all her speaking fees, that would warrant a closer look - this is a move along carry on for me.
But, I think the outrage here is a bit more general. Buying speeches is essentially influence tokens. Any amount and the idea it's happening for personal gain of a government official in America is what frustrates people. It kind of reads as if you're saying 'eh, it's not really that many influence tokens'.
For example, if this amount is a "move along, carry on" for you, I'd be curious to know when you draw the line specifically?
Wait until these same people find out about various "senior advisors", board memberships, and think tanks!
This isn't ideal but public service isn't a vow of poverty and someone will pay them. What is important (and appears to be the case here) is that they are public and disclosed. Citadel is only 10% of her overall speaking fees over two years. She owes them nothing.
When we give money to someone, there is an expectation of receiving something in return.
- Because you can: $700k is not a lot of money to these orgs
- Because you have to: if you don't spend the money you lose it in the budget
- Because you want to brag: social media points for you and all your employees (look who we got to meet and you didn't!)
- Because you want to attract new talent: your org is more attractive if you offer these events to your employees
etc.
I think any of these are just as plausible as corruption.
If you give a judge a slice of pizza and they accept it, they can be fired.
We all understand this. Yet, "speaking fees" are accepted =)
I know you may object to how much she is paid. However, there are only 15 former chairs of the US Federal Reserve in history, and at the time she was one of 3 living (and not currently serving) ones, the first woman, and Paul Volcker is 92. Based on some basic searches, a celebrity commencement speech fee may run from $50-100K, and I would argue that Yellen's thoughts are far more valuable.
Let's turn this around. What freedoms would you take away from people that wanted to be government appointees? What if she had been an executive of Citadel for a year instead? If she doesn't do speaking fees, Janet Yellen still has a mortgage and bills. Speaking fees are public, have low quid pro quo leverage, and they are disclosed.
This seems to be the best possible arrangement to have qualified people in positions of power.
According to Wikipedia, her net worth is 16,000,000. (I must be missing some commas somewhere.)
You don't think offering someone 4% of their net worth to speak for an hour could buy some influence?
The problem is getting more money than the people they serve just because they happen to be servants of the people.
Citadel had nothing to do with the Gamestop meme mania, besides being a market maker that processed a lot of transactions. Anything else you hear is crackpot conspiracy theories with zero evidence.
It'd be like saying "Why is this official with ties to Toyota not recusing themselves, when we already know that the mafia regularly drove cars! How deep does this go?!"
When is it so vital that Yellen, who is an economist and former Fed official and not an expert at all in equity market structure, so vital to be involved in this investigation? What expertise does she have to no one on the SEC staff has?
Market structure is not the subject of the investigation. Market volatility is. In this case microstructure has absolutely zero to do with the volatility. It was caused by 7 million retail traders simultaneously joining a poorly thought out pump and dump. That would create volatility regardless of the mechanics of how orders are crossed.
> Not saying that did happen, not saying it didn't, but Citadel is central
Spoiler: It didn't happen. Robinhood already publicly confirmed that the issue was them running out of collateral at the clearinghouse. Citadel confirmed that it never stopped accepting orders. The DTC confirmed that it raised the margin on GME, causing Robinhood to near its margin calls. JP Morgan and Goldman confirmed that Robinhood drew down its credit lines. Dozens of other brokers, most without ties to Citadel, restricted trading at the same time citing the same clearinghouse issues. The SEC could easily verify all of this. It would necessitate a giant conspiracy involving hundreds of potential whistle-blowers across a dozen companies all risking jail time. And somehow there's zero evidence of any of it.
This has become the stock market equivalent of QAnon at this point.
That all seems fine! Most speaking fee arrangements - even with politicians - seem to me to be in this mode. Are there cases where kickbacks or bribes are given as speaking fees? Sure, elsewhere in this thread there's discussion of no-name doctors (who happened to prescribe lots of Oxycontin) giving lectures to empty halls for hundreds of thousands of dollars seems like a bribe. But that's because the no-name MD is getting _way_ more than the going rate for his status!
When the speaker is already well known, the institution is already getting something for its money, so overlaying an implication of clandestine, speculative (retroactive?) quid pro quo is an unnecessary over-read.
Also, like, Barney Frank is on the board of a bank. Chris Dodd asks 40-70k to speak. Mike Oxley worked for NASDAQ. These 'sinecures' don't seem like they're conditional on passing laws that Wall St. likes.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-24/fed-hires...
The "speaking" fees are really just bribes, lets me honest about it. It's so corrupt and so obvious and begs the question what are you going to do about it?
They should be paid an enormous salary plus an excellent pension for life, with the caveat that they are not allowed to accept income from any other source for the rest of their life. This would not be a lot of money. If we paid everyone in the house, senate, and cabinet $10M / y, that would cost < $5B per year, which is nothing to the government. You could make the pensions like $2M / year, and the total cost would probably come in at < $10B.
Cherry-picking a detail and making that the title instead is the primary form of editorializing, so please don't do that. Titles are by far the biggest influence on threads. On HN, submitting an article doesn't confer any special right to frame the content for everyone else.
If you want to say what you think is important about an article, that's fine, but do it by adding a comment to the thread. Then your view is on a level playing field with everyone else's.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
The current article is arguably a borderline case, but it takes a long time to get to the ethics issue and I'm not sure that's what the bulk of it is about. Maybe it should be, but that's more of an editorial point.
Why should we give our public officials the benefit of the doubt? Why should they get the charitable viewpoint? Imo, if you hold the absolutely shocking amounts of power someone like Yellen does, where your post has significant control on the oversight and regulation of the most powerful free market economy in history, you NEED to have your feet held to the fire with regards to stuff like bribery. Our system has become corrupted due to charitable explanations.
Seems like a great impartial position.
"In the report, the OIG reviewed nine travel requests by Mnuchin for military air transportation since March 2017, of which seven were approved and taken, one was withdrawn, and one was approved with travel pending in late October 2017.[110] The total cost of the seven trips taken was $811,800, calculated from per-hour cost and operating hours for the specific aircraft, or Air Force-provided direct costs of operations."
And this was MY money he torched, not wallstreet
And this was just ONE of the shady things he did while serving. I'll take Yellen 7 days out of the week if the alternative are ghouls like Mnuchin.
Maybe we can have severely increased taxes beyond certain point on government officials?
That's why it's the main topic in the comments.
> "Yellen received more than $700,000 in speaking fees from Citadel, the financial empire run by billionaire Ken Griffin. Griffin runs a hedge fund and controls Citadel Securities, a giant market making firm that executes trades for Robinhood’s customers."
Why on earth are all the comments about her speaking fees? That paragraph was totally superfluous in the article.
Think about the business models...The college business model depends on maintaining prestige to continuously attract applicants willing to pay high admission rates. The finance business model uses money to make more money, and the risk to reward ration can be swayed depending on decisions made by certain individuals.
Focus on Yellen's speaking fee is simply trying to explain away in advance why many people given access to data which could prove it either way and tasked with investigating will conclude this baseless conspiracy theory is a baseless conspiracy theory.
[0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abscam [1]https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/archive/special/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Abramoff
Back in the news last June:
https://www.courthousenews.com/lobbyist-abramoff-charged-in-...
https://wallstreetonparade.com/2021/02/citadel-didnt-just-ba...
why would Citadel bail out melvin ?
Same reason why people buy stocks when it's tanking (remember, for every seller there's a buyer): because they think the fund's undervalued and they can buy it at a discount.
Who grants this waiver? Can I write to somebody who can prevent her from getting it.
RH and Citadel weren't colluding at all. It was their clearing house (Apex, which is used by almost 50% of brokerage firms) that demanded they raise the collateral by 100% which in turn required the brokers to stop transferring shares as the clearing house were not comfortable with floating large number of shares with limited quantity and high volume.
I'm afraid that because WSB has politicized this to "David vs Goliath" without even considering that a small group of their users ARE the real Goliaths, hyping and mobilizing their userbase incapable of critical thinking to drive share prices up and down.
Now they are simply going to make life more difficult for retail traders and we are going to see new regulations against using social media to pump up stocks.
I hope that those people who were pumping up $GME, saying it was going to $30,000 have been using Tor or VPN. The conspiracies coming out of WSB has been nothing short of Qanon-like in terms of its vigor, fixation and paranoia. It feels exactly like what r/the_donald was in 2016 before they were rightfully shut down.
Now we get Biden and his administration of professional grifters.
It should shock us all it costs 1.9T for a country with 330 million peopled to give 150 million of those $2000. That means 1.6T in grift going down.....
Trump, Fox, and establishment Republicans all directly or indirectly said “the swamp is better than the alternatives”. See, for example, many of the excuses given for hiring all the 9 figure and up net worth cabinet members.
This is something that absolutely needs to be fixed in our society, and something that should unify 99% of people. But half of the country is under the delusion that the previous administration was somehow fixing this, simply because they said they were. This division makes it impossible to ever get anything done.
The speech is surely not worth that much. Is the exorbitant amount of money paid for the speech just an opportunity to be a patron of a "thought leader", i.e a legal bribe in other words?
$700k is not a material amount of money for Citadel, especially if it may contain information that can give them an edge.
If you hire U2 to do a a private show for your staff, you don't get those kinds of added bonuses.
When Masayoshi got 45 minutes in Trump Tower to convince Trump to push forward the Sprint/TMobile merger, do you think that Trump just handed out that favour for free? Because it was 'Good For American Business'? Or maybe at some later date, Trump might find himself in need of investors for his Trump Tower Tokyo, or some help in getting regulators to approve it?
That's not a speech, is a consult.
It's a way for powerful people to pay other powerful people for arbitrary things like 'speeches' so that they can exchange favours off the books in a very indirect way.
It doesn't have to be illegal or even nefarious, but it should raise eyebrows as a possible conflict of interest.
Monetary payments leave paper trails. What's an easy way around that? Come give a 30 minute speech!
From a quick Google search, there are plenty of actors and sportspeople who charge six figures for a speech.
It's the most arbitrarily thing imaginable, and you can just throw up any number for 'services performed'.
After Obama completed his term, he was immediately on the 'Speaking Fee' tour, including several million paid by a group of Italian banks in desperation [1], totally insolvent - for a a 45 minute speech (!). I wonder if what they needed was a 'Pep Talk' from a 'Former President' ... or perhaps someone influential to put in a good word with the ECB to push for loser monetary policy that might help save failing Italian banks?
I don't think speaking fees imply some kind of bad behaviour, but they are definitely smoke and often represent a conflict of interest.
It's a little bit funny that people don't recognize this: $700K (or whatever large amount), this is a material amount of money, you don't just spend this for no reason, you 'get something' for it.
As Hillary Clinton was about to win the 2016 presidency, masses of cash flowed into the Clinton Foundation (Norway and Australia were pumping in 10's of millions) but just as she lost - 'charitable donations' dried up. Have a look at this chart [2].
Just stare at this chart for a minute: massive cash flows to the charity someone expecting to be the most powerful person in the world, and then those cash flows completely evaporate as soon as we found it she wasn't going to have that power?
So, did Norway, Australia and all these international agencies and governments magically decided to be 'less charitable' in 2016?
Or was it that they were 'expecting to get something in return' for their massive charitable donations?
Let's not be naive.
It doesn't mean there is criminality or even excessive payments, but it's obviously a conflict of interest. If may be something as simple as 'The Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund wants 10 Minutes with the President, to get an introduction to some agency' - and that's it. A very expensive call, but possibly worth it.
And this is not 'political' and certainly not 'one side of the aisle' it's just business.
[1] https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/802063/Barack-Obama-spe...
[2] https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/12/clinton-foundation-...
Imagine the billions in property damage due to peaceful protests if a Trump appointee didn't recuse themselves.
Let see what happens.