Amid
Cordray's
Recess
Appointment,
Fox Still
Slated for
Federal
Reserve
Hen House
By
Matthew
R. Lee
SOUTH
BRONX,
January 4 --
With senior
Obama
administration
officials
telling
reporters that
former Ohio
Attorney
General Richard
Cordray
will be put
atop the
Consumer
Financial
Protection
Bureau in
a recess
appointment to
be announced
in Cleveland,
media present
a bipolar
politics that
ignores the
degree to
which
financial
institutions
--
Wall Street --
dominate or
Occupy the US
capital.
The
week
before Obama
is putting
Cordray
forward, he
nominated two
new
governors for
the Federal
Reserve Board,
including a
hedge fund (or
"private
equity")
insider from
the Carlyle
Group, Dillon
Reed and
Bankers Trust
/ Deutsche
Bank, Jay
Powell. So a
fox guards
the financial
hen house from
one side while
attention is
directed to
the other?
The
Federal
Reserve Board
governors,
beyond setting
interest
rates,
regulate banks
and bank
holding
companies,
including
approving or
denying merger
applications
like Capital
One's pending
proposal to
acquire ING
Direct.
Putting
on the Board
a person like
Powell, who
was worked for
Bankers
Trust /
Deutsche
Bank, one of
the most
notorious
foreclosers on
subprime
mortgage
loans in the
US, and
the Carlyle
Group (which
at a minimum
bought
into a company
after it was
identified by
the UN as
involved in
conflict
minerals) is
more than a
little
telling.
What
conflict
of interest
safeguards
would be in
place? Or will
focus on
the recess
appointment of
Cordray
obscure the
need for
reform of the
Fed?
#OWS
protests in
Times Square,
BofA, Powell
at Fed,
Cordray at
CFPB not
shown, (c)
MRLee
After
Inner
City Press first
raised these
issues,
including
Powell's
previous
employment by
the Carlyle
Group among
others, in a
piece on
December 28,
the head of
Global
Communication
for the
Carlyle Group
quickly wrote
it to say that
the company
had never
invested in
the
Congo or
Myanmar.
After
Inner
City Press
documented the
Congo link --
including as
initially
exposed by a
UN sanctions
monitoring
report -- the
response was
that
the company
Carlyle bought
obtained a
certification
of clean hands
in
2011. But that
was after
Carlyle made
the decision
to buy it.
Nothing
has been
provided on
Myanmar,
regarding
which it's
reported on
Amnesty
International's
Business &
Human Rights
site:
Drilling
for
the Burmese
Junta
Norwatch
07
Jul 2006
The
rig
“Frontier
Duchess” is
believed to
have carried
out the work
in the Shwe
field in block
1-A and
Shwe-3. But
Frontier
Drilling’s
management
will not
supply details
about either
the Daewoo
assignment
or the exact
time the
operations
took place.
“The only
thing I can
say about the
case is that
the assignment
is completed,”
Roar Bye,
Finance
Director in
Frontier
Drilling, told
Norwatch...“We
had a
drilling
assignment for
the Korean
company Daewoo
and have not
entered into
an agreement
with the
military
regime in
Burma..."...Frontier
Drilling...is
today a wholly
owned
subsidiary of
FDR-Holdings...FDR-Holdings
is
consequently
controlled
by private
American
funds. These
funds include
Carlyle/Riverstone
–
that is, The
Carlyle Group
of Washington,
D.C. (Carlyle),
and Riverstone
Holdings LLC
of New York,
N.Y. – and the
New
York-based
finance and
investment
bank Credit
Suisse First
Boston
(CSFB)..
Those
are
only two
issues. But
will they be
lost amid the
sports-like
reportong on
Cordray's
nomination to
the CFPB?
Watch this
site.
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