Wall Street Has Got Treasury Secretary-Designate Janet Yellen

Jan. 4 , 2021 (EIRNS)—An indication of the process by which Joe Biden came to name former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen as his would-be Treasury Secretary, is the large amount of money Yellen has been paid “for speeches” over the past two years. The payments have come entirely from Wall Street banks and investment firms, and have totaled $7.3 million—similar to the process by which Hillary Clinton was “prepared” during 2015 and 2016 for the Democratic nomination which the DNC took from Sen. Bernie Sanders for her, and the Presidency that she failed to win.

Certainly after Yellen’s years as Fed chair, with nine major press conferences and four days of Congressional testimony each year, plus numerous interviews both during and after her term, what Yellen has to say about bank regulation and monetary policy was already quite well known to the Wall Street banks going into 2020. Yet, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, City National Bank, UBS, Citadel Investors, Barclays, Crédit Suisse—and Google—paid her an average of $125,000 for each of 57 personal appearances or Zoom speeches. Citadel, where her predecessor as Fed chair, Ben Bernanke, is a senior advisor, was responsible for an astonishing $800,000 for just three of those presentations, according to research by Zero Hedge.

The banksters’ clear purpose, betting on a Democratic return to the White House, was to have Yellen in their pockets, owing them for becoming rather notably wealthy rather quickly in her 70s. But don’t worry, she would be checked on—her Deputy Treasury Secretary, should she get into that Cabinet position, will be Wally Adeyemo, CEO Larry Fink’s interim chief of staff from BlackRock, Inc. And heading Biden’s National Economic Council would be Brian Deese, who was “Global Head of Sustainable Investing” at BlackRock.

What do the rest of us get from her? As an EIR Economics author wrote in an internal staff report on Nov. 27, 2020: “Reflecting Yellen’s thinking is the report she co-authored just Oct. 8 with UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance Mark Carney, former Governor of the Bank of England, on behalf of the Group of Thirty Organization, titled “Mainstreaming the Transition to a Net-Zero Economy.” The Group of Thirty is constituted of leading bankers and central bankers....

“In the G30 press release for her report, Yellen insisted, ‘Reaching the net zero requires a whole economy transition, and the mainstreaming of sustainable finance. As the report shows, credible climate policies and committed pathways to net zero will crowd in private investment and ensure that private financial markets pull forward adjustments from the future.’ She backed this up in an interview with Reuters on Oct. 8, where she called for a “carbon tax” on an increasing scale that would force out fossil fuels.”