Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power - Maine

'I Need To Make Money' - Barney Frank Defends Signature Bank Board Role

Defending his role on the board of the failed Signature Bank, former Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank tells Financial Times, “I need to make some money."

The man, whose namesake Dodd-Frank Act piled regulations on banks, in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis says he's “chagrined" over Signature's closing, "because obviously people will say, ‘Oh, hey mister, you told everybody else how to run a bank and the bank you were helping run failed’.”

Frank served on Signature's board since 2015. He told FT that, having declined a congressional pension, he needed the income:

“Having retired, not having a pension by my choice, not wanting to be a lobbyist for reasons personal, I need to make some money. I do it in part by writing. But I also do it by joining boards. Logically, I’m asked to join boards on subjects with which I was identified.”

The 82-year-old Frank made about $2.4 million on Signature's board, according to Wall Street Journal estimates. In 2012 -- near the end of his stay in Congress -- Open Secrets estimated Frank's net worth at slightly over $1 million.

Frank told the New Yorker his other reason for joining Signature Bank was because it's been "the leading user of the low-income-housing tax credit in New York," which aligns with his policy interest in affordable housing.

During his time on Capitol Hill, Frank condemned staffers who left to become financial services lobbyists -- then he joined Signature's board two years after leaving Congress.

Jeff Hauser, executive director of the Revolving Door Project, rejects Frank's attempt to distinguish between being a lobbyist and a board member, telling FT:

“Ordinary people don’t disdain lobbyists because of the narrow, legal definition of the term. It’s sophistry beneath Frank’s considerable intellect” [to argue he was doing] “anything other than lobbyingwithin the commonly understood sense of the term.”

After joining Signature's board, Frank publicly argued that Dodd-Frank's $50 billion threshold for imposing tougher regulatory measures on banks was too low. They were raised in 2018, exempting Signature and other regional banks from those extra regulations.

Former Rep. Barney Frank and Sen. Christopher Dodd (Getty via CNBC)

He told New Yorker he took that stance before joining Signature.

"I decided that by 2012, and, in fact, said it publicly...In fact, I had never heard of Signature Bank at the time when I began to advocate raising the limit."

Frank says he doesn't think the threshold change made a difference in Signature's fate:

"I have read what Elizabeth [Warren], and others, said. I don’t see any argument that there was something that was going on that would’ve been stopped if they had got the same scrutiny as JPMorgan Chase...

Where there was a weakening—the living will and the stress test—neither one of those goes to the actual physical condition of the bank."

Signature Bank won't be on the only dent in Frank's obituary: In 1989, he was the center of a scandal over his two-year relationship with a male hooker who ran a prostitution business out of Frank's DC apartment.

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Comment by Thinklike A. Mountain on March 18, 2023 at 1:10am: “These Bastards Stole Our Election, and I Will Not Let Them Off The Hook.” – Kari Lake Discusses Rasmussen Poll Results And Upcoming AZ Supreme Court Conference with Steve Bannon – Conference TUESDAY (VIDEO)

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/03/these-bastards-stole-our-e...

Comment by Thinklike A. Mountain on March 17, 2023 at 11:24am: Arizona Poll Asks: Who Did You Vote for in the November 2022 Election?

Folks, we have nothing short of an attempted overthrow of the United States happening.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/03/explosive-new-rasmussen-po...

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U.S. Sen Angus King

THE UNTOLD STORY OF RECORD HILL WIND

The Untold Story of Record Hill Wind, continued

Maine as Third World Country:

CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power

Click here to read how the Maine ratepayer has been sold down the river by the Angus King cabal.

Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT

******** IF LINKS BELOW DON'T WORK, GOOGLE THEM*********

(excerpts) From Part 1 – On Maine’s Wind Law “Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met." . – Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, August 2010 https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/From Part 2 – On Wind and Oil Yet using wind energy doesn’t lower dependence on imported foreign oil. That’s because the majority of imported oil in Maine is used for heating and transportation. And switching our dependence from foreign oil to Maine-produced electricity isn’t likely to happen very soon, says Bartlett. “Right now, people can’t switch to electric cars and heating – if they did, we’d be in trouble.” So was one of the fundamental premises of the task force false, or at least misleading?" https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/From Part 3 – On Wind-Required New Transmission Lines Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine – oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines – that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.” https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/

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Hannah Pingree on the Maine expedited wind law

Hannah Pingree - Director of Maine's Office of Innovation and the Future

"Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine."

https://pinetreewatch.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/

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