By Matthew R. Lee
SOUTH BRONX, December 28, updated -- For an open seat on the Federal Reserve Board, a hedge fund insider from the Carlyle Group, Jay Powell, is reportedly being nominated by President Barack Obama.
Beyond the obvious overtones of a fox guarding the chicken house, what in fact was learned from the global financial meltdown?
The Federal Reserve Board governors, beyond setting interest rates, regulate banks and bank holding companies.
Putting on the Board a person like Powell, who has worked for Bankers Trust / Deutsche Bank (one of the most notorious foreclosers on subprime mortgage loans in the US) and the Carlyle Group (known for brutal investments in Myanmar / Burma (reportedly drilling in Shwe-3 through FDR-Holdings) and the Congo, in tantalum via H.C. Starck in 2007, to say nothing about subprime) is more than a little telling. [See below]
While there is a loud fight about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, quietly a fox is proposed to enter the hen house of bank regulation.
Given the activities of Deutsche Bank and the Carlyle Group, which only today was reported to be planning a new vulture fund targeting banks weakened by the financial turmoil of which the Fed is front-man conductor, what conflict of interest safeguards would be in place?
What will Occupy Wall Street do? Who can still say that the Emperor has no clothes? Watch this site.
Update of Dec. 29, 1 am -- the Director of Global Communications of The Carlyle Group has written to say Carlyle "has never invested capital in Burma / Myanmar or the Congo." To unpack the links above, from 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)..
"Tantalum is extracted from an ore called coltan, which is primarily found in Central Africa, particularly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The company H.C. Starck which was sold to Advent International and the Carlyle Group in February 2007 by Bayer was involved in this trade significantly."
Watch this site.
