Plausible Deniability.... Case In Point

Z-Z-Z-Z-TAM !!!

Not a pretty
picture !!

Sometimes the gods of irony conspire to force us to stop .... and confront our very human foolishness. 

And, they seem to take great glee in pushing us in front of very large mirrors, in the most public of settings, at the worst possible moments. One of those ridiculous moments arose at the CUNA GAC yesterday. 

One of the "cornerstone events" of the GAC is the Herb Wegner Memorial Awards dinner sponsored by the National Credit Union Foundation (NCUF).  The finest and brightest people and ideas in the credit union movement are justly recognized and honored. 

The NCUF is the charitable, social responsibility arm of CUNA - the focal point for all credit unions to "UNITE FOR GOOD"! - or so you'd think.

The NCUF is funded (to the tune of @ $700K)
by the earnings NCUF receives from investments made by natural person credit unions through The Members Trust Co. - the national, credit union-owned trust company headquartered in Tampa, Fla.

The investment fund is called a "Charitable Lead Trust" and is a well-designed, conservative, highly professional "force for good" (- or so you'd think !) in the credit union world. Quite a highly visible group of credit unions have invested tens of millions of dollars in the Trust. Those credit unions all did due diligence about the investment, including confirming regulatory approvals from the "New-CUA". (Here's the "New-CUA"'s OGC approval).

Here's the letter which the leaders of Members Trust Company/ NCUF received on Monday, February 25, 2013 from "New-CUA" supremo Larry Fazio.  While "New-CUA"'s leadership sat front row, center at the Herb Wegner dinner , the real "New-CUA" was once again manufacturing a national embarassment.

But, here are the two really critical points about the latest "New-CUA" snafu:

1. The absolute lack of courtesy and professionalism exhibited by a most senior NCUA official in casually dropping such a "bombshell" - over-ruling its own OGC - into the mail without any prior discussion or notification to Members Trust.
2. When publicly pressed about the letter, that senior NCUA official flippantly saying he did not know anything about the letter and that letters went out over his signature all the time about which he had no clue - the "New-CUA"?

It's my understanding that "the powers that be"  at NCUA are meeting furiously as we speak to do "damage control" - all, of course, have claimed plausible deniability.... stay tuned !

Watch for "the truth" about a "New-CUA" in how all this turns out... COVERUP (old NCUA)... APOLOGY ("New-CUA").... 

Anyone want to bet?

(Have you signed the petition ?  www.coopsforchange.org )

Members Trust
http://jbcu.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/ncuaconfirmation.pdf


Fazio
http://jbcu.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/fazio.pdf