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Yellen earned millions in speaking fees from Wall St, tech firms (2021)

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Re: Yellen earned millions in speaking fees from Wall St, tech firms (2021)

#61

Post by sbaiddn »

throwawaysleep wrote: post #19

This is years old. She wasn’t doing this while working in gov.

Obviously! That would be illegal. The trick is that the people paying the fees know that:

- you're well connected

- you'll be back in government as soon as the administrations change.

Or do you really think Biden (or Trump, or DeSantis, or whoever you want) would have chosen as secretary the bank administrator of Springfield Oklahoma's largest credit union? That would be daft.

So the relevant part is that "unemployed" Yellen was "[..] the Federal Reserve chair from 2014 to 2018."

When her term ended: "She took in the speaking fees in 2019 and 2020."

And, after an arduous two year job search she's a cabinet level secretary regulating those she collected fees from.

Re: Yellen earned millions in speaking fees from Wall St, tech firms (2021)

#62

Post by ramphastidae »

patrec wrote: post #59
ramphastidae wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’ve know for decades - take money out of politics and make it about civil service. To do so requires campaign finance reform (limits on spending and sources of $) as well as making lobbying illegal

People like you are exactly the reason why we can't have competent politicians. Who apart from crazy ideologues, the crooked and those that can't hack it as anything else than demagogues do you expect to sign up for a job where you are a public punching ball on terrible pay and with limited ability to diverge from whatever party line or other contingencies dictate?

Can you explain why? Obviously the current system isn’t producing competent ones either.

Re: Yellen earned millions in speaking fees from Wall St, tech firms (2021)

#63

Post by boeingUH60 »

vuln wrote: post #51
boeingUH60 wrote: post #27

One of the most notable deals I heard about for a politician was Obama getting a $65 million book advance [1] shortly after leaving office. I get that Obama's books sell a lot, but damn, that's huge. It's obvious that once you become a high-ranking politician (especially President, VP, or a similar high-level position), wealth awaits you once you leave office. What's then the incentive to serve the people if you know…

Asking a question, not starting an argument. Is Trump the only President that didn't land in a pool full of cash when he left office and actually "lost" money / wealth while in office ?

Well, he already had money before becoming President and everyone knew that. But, hell, did the people around him cash in. For instance, Jared Kushner (Special Adviser/son-in-law) and Steve Mnuchin (Treasury Secretary) founded private equity firms and raised $2 billion and $1 billion respectively from the Saudi government [1]. It's not illegal to do that, but it's really murky especially for Kushner who was not known for having investment experience outside real estate (Mnuchin, on the other hand, is a veteran investor who previously chaired a bank).

1- https://www.businessinsider.com/kusner-mnuchin-raised-combin...

Re: Yellen earned millions in speaking fees from Wall St, tech firms (2021)

#64

Post by janalsncm »

> Yellen listed firms and banks where she had received speaking fees and said she intended to “seek written authorization” from ethics officials to “participate personally and substantially” in matters involving them

What the hell? The speaking fees themselves should have been banned, but she doesn’t have to recuse herself? Any “ethics” official that approved that needs to be fired.

Re: Yellen earned millions in speaking fees from Wall St, tech firms (2021)

#65

Post by vuln »

janalsncm wrote: post #55
vuln wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asking a question, not starting an argument. Is Trump the only President that didn't land in a pool full of cash when he left office and actually "lost" money / wealth while in office ?

Did Trump lose money? Seems almost impossible to fully account for all of his assets before and after his presidency.

I don't know really. I didn't see a 65 million dollar book advance. He wasn't too quick to hit the paid speaking engagements. Never ending lawsuits, more lawsuits don't really seem to be making him money...

Re: Yellen earned millions in speaking fees from Wall St, tech firms (2021)

#66

Post by starkd »

hgsgm wrote: post #46
throwme_123 wrote: post #30

The US is actually one the most corrupt countries on earth. What makes it worse: They always try to give lessons to the rest of the world, but meh. The result is here: Record homeless Americans, drug addicts in the streets, health crisis, education crisis, while the ruling elite (it's even more hypocritical when it's the left like Yellen) gets even richer. Time for a revolution maybe.

Yellen is center-right, not left.

No way. Maybe at one time, but her comments in recent years put her way out of that category.

Re: Yellen earned millions in speaking fees from Wall St, tech firms (2021)

#67

Post by aikinai »

tannhauser23 wrote: post #15

Whenever I see a politician or regulator arrested for accepting bribes, I think, what an amateur. American elites have perfected the art of the grift: do a turn in government or academy, and then become a ‘thought leader’ or form an NGO and collect speaking fees from Wall Street and foreign powers. Wait for your party to get back in power, do another round in government, rinse and repeat. Even the Presidency and Prim…

In Japan they have a wired for it, “amakudari” (descending from Heaven). I think it helps people understand the concept and the prevalence to have a dedicated word and not have to describe it.

Re: Yellen earned millions in speaking fees from Wall St, tech firms (2021)

#68

Post by lekanwang »

I like the Singaporean model of benchmarking high-ranking government salaries to a percent of the pay of top earners in the country (https://www.dollarsandsense.sg/heres-much-singapores-preside..., https://www.psd.gov.sg/docs/default-source/default-document-...), and pairing that with very active anticorruption enforcement.

MPs get paid over $1M USD under this model, but it incentives are much more aligned under this model.

Re: Yellen earned millions in speaking fees from Wall St, tech firms (2021)

#69

Post by taylodl »

dtech wrote: post #50
taylodl wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you propose? Every party involved has the freedom to associate with whomever they want and the right to conduct business with them. If Yellen was doing a lousy job then presumably far fewer people would be willing to pay her a speaker fee. But hey, if people want to pay her to speak then that's their business.

The problem is it just means money == political power, which purportedly democracies try to not have.

The Fed isn't the government and Yellen isn't a politician. Those statements aren't technicalities, they are facts. The Fed was vested by Congress to be the U.S.' banker due to Congress' abysmal history of failure managing money policy.

As far as money == political power, start with campaign finance reform. That's the vehicle being used to "buy" politicians.

Re: Yellen earned millions in speaking fees from Wall St, tech firms (2021)

#70

Post by bell-cot »

boeingUH60 wrote: post #27

One of the most notable deals I heard about for a politician was Obama getting a $65 million book advance [1] shortly after leaving office. I get that Obama's books sell a lot, but damn, that's huge. It's obvious that once you become a high-ranking politician (especially President, VP, or a similar high-level position), wealth awaits you once you leave office. What's then the incentive to serve the people if you know…

Conveniently not covered in that article - the $65M was from Penguin Random House, which had been formed in a 2013 merger...which merger then-Pres. Obama evidently didn't oppose too strongly.

OTOH, it's at least arguable that Penguin Random House only cared about selling boatloads of pricey books. A quick Google found mention of a few yet-bigger advances, paid to mere authors...though for multi-book sets.

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