"It's a big club, and you ain't in it" - George Carlin
"Yellen was a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors from 1994 to 1997 and again from 2010 to 2018. She chaired the Council of Economic Advisers in the Clinton administration from 1997 to 1999 and was the president of the Fed Reserve Bank of San Fran from 2004 to 2010. She served as vice-chair of the Federal Reserve from 2010 to 2014. In 2014, Yellen was nominated by President Barack Obama to succeed Ben Bernanke as chair of the Federal Reserve. She served one term from 2014 to 2018 and was not re-appointed by President Donald Trump."
Lynda (Quote above from Wiki)
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by Tyler Durden
Wednesday, Feb 03, 2021 - 8:26
Once it became clear - just a few seconds after AOC first rage-tweeted about RobinHood refusing to let "the people" trade more shares of $GME and $AMC before adding that she'd support a public hearing on what had just happened - that all the key players in the "WallStreetBets"/"Gamestop" trading saga would soon be dragged in front of Congress like a gaggle of tech CEOs, the newly elected Democrats and their hand-picked economic team were faced with a critical question: who exactly was going to preside over these proceedings on the regulatory side, since they are virtually all compromised by key connections to the financial services industry, and not just the big banks.
Over the past decade, a new category of financial beast has arisen. At Zero Hedge, we have been writing about them for years. They're alternatively called "high frequency traders" "high freaks", and "orderflow frontrunners" for those enjoy speaking the truth, or "market makers" for the political correct, but after the events of last week, millions of people were either asking Google, or their one IBD analyst friend, to explain what 'Citadel' is, and how it works.... the same Citadel which threatened to sue Zero Hedge last June for accusing it of frontrunning orders, just weeks before regulators punished Citadel for frontrunning orders (oops).
Now, barely days after being confirmed as President Joe Biden's new Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen must preside over a major media circus and the most glaring indication yet of just how broken the US stock market is (thanks in large part to her actions while she was head of the Fed).
Which is a problem because as a reminder, Yellen received almost a million dollars in "speaking fees" in the past two years from the firm that is the quasi-monopoly "market maker" in the US, responsible for half of retail orderflow thanks to its domination of Robinhood trades...
... and is why one month ago, Yellen pledged in an ethics form that she will recuse herself for one year "from when she last made paid speeches to the companies." And yes, her last speech to Citadel was last October.
Alas it turns out this was all just a joke, and (un)fortunately for her and the 'integrity' of American so-called "markets", the honorable Fed Chair Treasury Secretary has received permission from ethics lawyers to lead the proceedings, which will begin Thursday with a meeting of top US market regulators.
Then again we already kinda knew that because when asked during a Thursday White House press conference whether Yellen would recuse herself from advising the president on the ongoing GME stock shorting after having been previously paid upwards of $1 million in speaking fees from Robinhood’s largest customer, Press Secretary Jen Psaki didn’t seem to have a problem with relying on the new Democratic Treasury secretary’s counsel.
“Separate from the GameStop issue, the secretary of the Treasury is one of the world-renowned experts on markets, on the economy. It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone she was paid to give her perspective and advice before she came into office,” Psaki told reporters, ignoring the obvious conflict of interest.
It then got downright surreal, when Psaki implied that it was sexist to mention Yellen’s conflict of interest because she’s a woman.
“I’m also happy to repeat that we have the first female treasury secretary,” Psaki said in opening her response to the question from a reporter, going on to say Yellen’s communications team would typically take those questions instead of her.
In any case, with Citadel client Janet Yellen in tow, congressional hearings are expected to follow later this month in the House and the Senate, with the House Financial Services Committee, led by Maxine Waters and stocked with firebrand progressives, leading the way. Here's more on that from Bloomberg:
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has summoned U.S. financial regulators to discuss recent volatility in financial markets, in her first public effort to address the tumult involving GameStop Corp. shares and broker-dealer Robinhood Markets Inc.
Yellen called a meeting with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Treasury said in a statement late Tuesday. The Biden administration and regulators have faced pressure in recent days to respond to the market frenzy.
"Secretary Yellen believes the integrity of markets is important and has asked for a discussion of recent volatility in financial markets and whether recent activities are consistent with investor protection and fair and efficient markets,” the department said.
Yellen’s predecessors, including Steven Mnuchin, also organized meetings of financial agencies during times of tumult. They aren’t necessarily a signal that any policy moves are imminent. The SEC already said Friday it’s seeking to identify potential misconduct and will scrutinize brokerages’ decisions to halt buying that triggered a retail-investor revolt.
So much more on link below:
