(The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a
columnist for Reuters.)
By Steven Brill
March 4 (Reuters) – (This is the latest installment of
Steven Brill’s weekly column “Stories I’d Like to See.”)
1. Ambassadors without portfolios?
What happens when you’re an ambassador whose government has
been overthrown?
With the Ukrainian government being deposed last week, I’m
wondering about the fate of the country’s envoys and their
families. As key appointees of President – now fugitive – Viktor
Yanukovich, have they been replaced and evicted from their
embassies in Washington, New York (the United Nations
ambassador), London or Paris? Or are they all professional
foreign service officers, able to roll with the punches?
Who at the new regime in Kiev would assert to whom in the
host country that the incumbent ambassador no longer represents
Ukraine and should be evicted from the embassy, if that is to be
their fate? Where would they and their families go? What about
the staffs and their families?
In the particular case of Ukraine, is the fate of its
ambassador in Moscow different from that of his colleague in
Washington because Russia still supports Yanukovich?
This ought to be a compelling story, a mix of protocol,
geopolitics and family dynamics. For context, a reporter could
start by finding out what happened after the revolutions in
Libya or Egypt. Egypt might be particularly intriguing: Did
Hosni Mubarak’s man in Washington get thrown out by the Muslim
Brotherhood government, only to make his way back when the
Muslim Brotherhood was deposed?
2. Why the five-year delay in Federal Reserve Board minutes?
In Gretchen Morgenson’s February 22 column analyzing
transcripts of meetings of the powerful Federal Reserve Board
Open Market Committee during 2008, the savvy New York Times
finance reporter writes, “they paint a disturbing picture of a
central bank that was in the dark about each looming disaster
throughout 2008.”
Among those whose comments make them seem clueless,
according to Morgenson, was Timothy Geithner, who would soon
become President Barack Obama’s first Treasury secretary.
Other Times reporters picking through the transcripts opined
that then-board member Janet Yellen seemed to have sensed the
severity of the crisis more clearly than her colleagues.
All interesting. But why are we only finding this out in
2014?
Apparently the Federal Reserve has its own rule delaying
release of the transcripts until five years after the end of the
calendar year of the meetings.
To encourage spontaneity and candor, it might make sense not
to release the transcripts immediately, just as it probably
makes sense not to televise the meetings on C-Span. But five
years?
Yellen’s credentials were debated last year when she was
nominated to be the Fed chairwoman. Whether the Times reporters’
assessments are right or wrong, wouldn’t it have been valuable
to have this information during that debate? Wouldn’t something
like a two-year release (which would have still kept us in the
dark about Geithner’s purported failure to see the approaching
storm when his Treasury nomination was pending) strike a better
balance?
I’d like to see a story examining the origins of the rule
and the merits of shortening the blackout period.
3. Checking out conflict recusals in the Valley:
Activist investor Carl Icahn, who is trying to get eBay to
change strategy, has been making allegations that eBay board
members who don’t agree with him – particularly venture
capitalist Marc Andreessen – are part of a Silicon Valley
culture that is rife with conflicts because they regularly
invest in companies that compete against each other and then sit
on the companies’ boards. Andreessen, the co-founder of venture
capital firm Andreessen, Horowitz responded last week that he
always recuses himself from board discussions when such
conflicts arise.
Icahn had attacked Andreessen because Icahn wants eBay to
sell its PayPal division and Andreessen has investments that
compete with PayPal. Icahn also has noted that Andreessen’s firm
was, according to the Wall Street Journal, “part of an investor
group that bought Skype from eBay.”
There’s no reason to doubt that the highly-regarded
Andreessen does recuse himself. But why can’t a reporter get
hold of eBay’s minutes and find out for sure? Better yet, why
not pick the 10 Silicon Valley board members with the most
apparent conflicts and nail down the extent to which they recuse
themselves?
The list of the board members and their conflicts will be
interesting no matter what. In fact, it could be that some have
had to recuse themselves so often on important deliberations
that, assuming they step aside, their input as board members is
significantly marginalized.
(Steven Brill)
