On Leonard Abess; "Banker didn't seek limelight", but now that he's here ... by gimleteye

In his first speech to Congress, President Obama briefly bonded with popular outrage at Wall Street's excess and greed. He picked a counter-note from South Florida: "hope is found in unlikely places," the president said, "I think Leonard Abess, the bank president from Miami who reportedly cashed out of his company, took a $60 million bonus and gave it out to all 399 people who worked for him, plus another 72 who used to work for him."

A banker in Miami is an unlikely place to look for an upbeat story of sharing. After all, the political epicenter of the housing boom, is here in South Florida and Miami, in particular-- where the gears of opportunism meshed the interests of Wall Street bankers, real estate speculators, local mortgage bankers, and state and local elected officials who zoned platted subdivisions and condo canyons like there was no tomorrow (see the post on County Commissioner Barbara Jordan, below.) Miami is a little bit like "Chinatown" in this respect; every gear of the growth machine takes us to the root of corruption: the dismal state of our wetlands and environment mirrors the effect of financial derivatives that made bankers, insurance companies, and a totem pole of lobbyists wealthy beyond the dreams of most ordinary Americans. (please click, 'read more')

"He didn't tell anyone," the president told to the nation, "but when the local newspaper found out, he simply said, "I knew some of these people since I was 7 years old. I didn't feel right getting the money myself."

In early 2008, the Spanish bank Caja Madrid paid $927 million in exchange for an 83 percent stake in City National Bank. Abess' father, Leonard L. Abess, founded City National in 1946 with Baron de Hirsch Meyer as one of the first postwar commercial banks in South Florida; growing steadily and then rapidly on successive waves of real estate development that, in the final phase of the housing boom, fed Wall Street's insatiable demand for obscure and risky financial derivatives based on loans and mortgages that plunged the world in the deepest economic crisis since the Depression.

But there is more than a monetary bonus to this story.

The Abess family, founders of Miami's City National Bank, have been philanthropists in Miami for decades. In 2007, their commitment to charity garnered Leonard Abess and his wife, Jayne, the highest award of the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber press statement lists the Abess' record. Buried in that record is the fact that the Abess family, quietly and privately, is virtually alone among Florida's wealthy bankers in their support for environmental groups and causes.

It would be tempting to conclude that the Abess' sense of personal responsibility joins caring for the greater good with the ethical purpose that lead the family to share its wealth with present and past employees.

But what I would like to note is that the list of bankers who contribute to environmental causes in Florida doesn't go much further than Leonard and Jayne Abess.

"Jayne and Leonard Abess are devoted environmentalists," reads the Chamber press statement. "They created the Abess Center for Environmental Sciences at Miami Country Day School and founded the Abess Floating Research Station in the Brazilian Amazon. Leonard's long-standing environmental affiliations include the World Wildlife Fund's National Advisory Council, the Palm Society, the Audubon Society, and the Nature Conservancy/Florida Chapter."

I wonder how many fellow Chamber of Commerce members also give to environmental organizations and causes? The question, though, raises an even deeper issue: that wealthy Floridians are do not give to environmental groups whose purpose and projects undermine the profitability of development.

Destroying wetlands and the environment is part of a business model that conferred great wealth in Florida, and for which blame is rarely assessed. Where are the contributions to those local environmental groups fighting zoning and permitting decisions, like the Urban Development Boundary, that touch the commercial heart of the business of mortgages and loan origination?