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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsObama’s Wall Street-Friendly Cabinet, "Gang of Five" Departs to Wall St. for the BIG BUCKS
(Good Riddance!)
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by Ryan Chittum
"...a dispiriting series of parting kisses from the press to five of the principle figures in the Obama administrations Wall Street-friendly response to the financial crisis: SEC enforcement chief Robert Khuzami, Justice Department criminal division head Lanny Breuer, SEC chief Mary Schapiro, National Economic Council chair Larry Summers, and Geithner.
Heres where theyve ended up:
Khuzami took a $5 million a year job at corporate law firm Kirkland & Ellis after a six-month wait. Kirkland & Ellis represents such Wall Street firms as Morgan Stanley, UBS, American Express, and Bank of America, the latter of which got a wrist slap from Khuzami and the SEC for lying to investorsone so light that a federal judge raised a stink over it.
Breuer, two months after leaving DOJ, went through the revolving door to his old firm Covington & Burling and makes $4 million a year as the firms vice chair. Covington represents a Whos Who of the Wall Street firms Breuer failed to prosecute.
Schapirojoined the board of General Electric, a company she wrist-slapped for accounting fraud in 2009, failing to prosecute any individuals despite finding that GE, acting primarily through senior corporate accountants, engaged in knowing or reckless fraudulent activities resulting in numerous materially false and misleading statements or omissions. Worse, Schapiro also joinedPromontory Financial Group, a sort of shadow regulator that lets former SEC types cash in to help Wall Street navigate regulatory structures. Her pay is undisclosed but surely well into the seven digits.
Larry Summers is back at DE Shaw, though no word if hes still making $5 million a year for working one day a week. Hes also advising Citigroup, Nasdaq, Lending Club, and Silicon Valley biggie Andreesen Horowitz for untold pay.
And now Tim Geithner becomes president of private-equity firm Warburg Pincus for an undisclosed pay package that will be in the many, many millions of dollars a year. Hey, at least, its not Goldman.
Even that was predictable, though. Heres something I wrote in February on Geithner and the rash of resignations from the Obama administration:
"As the exit profiles stop, the real fun begins: Watching where these guys end up next. Presumably, the days of waltzing right into Citigroup, say, from high public office, for $15 million-a-year gigs with no responsibility, are over for now. More likely: A six-month break to disinterest the press followed by a sinecure at Cadwalader or a return to Covington or some such."
Ill end with former FDIC chief Sheila Bair, talking to American Banker editor Neil Weinberg earlier this year:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/11/18-7
vi5
(13,305 posts)Insert apologist excuses here:
"It was to know what the enemy was doing!!!"
"He needed insiders to be able to change things!!!!"
"These are the smartest people in their fields...he can't hold it against them who they workd for!!!!"
No wonder nothing has gotten done economically or in the financial sector.
WowSeriously
(343 posts)1. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good
2. You play the hand you're dealt
3. We're playing chess while they're playing checkers
4. All of the above
Laelth
(32,017 posts)-Laelth
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)Wilms
(26,795 posts)If Hillary wins, they'll be back.
polichick
(37,152 posts)Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)Need I say more?
polichick
(37,152 posts)pocoloco
(3,180 posts)Busy collecting the spoils at this moment!
Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)and in the process they will never have left. Again. Forever.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Now, let's throw a Sanders or a Warren into the mix and get the nation to stand up and scream, "NO."
Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)just nod their heads and do as they're told.
This very topic, a hypothetical Presidential run over a year prior to the mid-term elections, demonstrates how easily they are manipulated through media. They insist on ignoring all the men behind the curtain.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)They have rigged the entire system. They have restructured elections. They have rigged government and the courts. They have purchased the media. They have dismantled the Constitution. They have crippled investigative journalism. They have implemented a surveillance state and a police state. And they have impoverished millions of us.
What do we have left besides our voices and our numbers?
Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)(and by us, I mean the vast majority that neither know nor care about anything 'political').
We elected these parasites and con-artists and then looked the other way for decades as they plied their trade at our expense. George Carlin was right, we hire and pay them to lie to us, because we don't like hearing anything that bears any resemblance to truth.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)parties? Christie is Thing 1 and Clinton is Thing 2. Now what do we do?
Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)I have to say that I'm leaning toward doing a farewell tour and bidding the U.S. goodbye.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)progressoid
(49,978 posts)Too bad it took this long. A lot of damage has been done already.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)It's depressing, but being offered a middle class living grading term papers and attending faculty meetings vs making enough to retire in 6 months is just too much for most is no comparison at all.
And while it's easy to sit and bemoan the corrupt nature of individuals who cash in, that ignores the structural problem. Most people will take a huge payday over a very modest one. It's one thing to be principled in supporting Elizabeth Warren/some other progressive champion vs Hillary Clinton, it's another to leave $25 million on the table over those same principles.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)Need to kick this just as a friendly reminder to the Grand Bargainers amongst us.
Main Street 2014! Main Street 2014! Main Street 2014! Main Street 2014! Main Street 2014! Main Street 2014!
xchrom
(108,903 posts)liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)looting as they go.
pscot
(21,024 posts)on that Geithner pay package. But who's counting.
Sognefjord
(229 posts)Throw key into nearby lake.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)Rex
(65,616 posts)Politics is just an inconvenience for people trying to get rich off the backs of the poor.
cherokeeprogressive
(24,853 posts)bvar22
(39,909 posts)[font size=5]
The DLC New Team
[/font]
(Screen Capped from the DLC Website 2009)
CanonRay
(14,101 posts)It's the American Way!
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)zeemike
(18,998 posts)Wall Street is not a place but a concept.
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)Maybe they still are, but they're still a bunch of amoral vultures.
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)The Oval Office, and members of Congress will continue to be the lapdogs and the puppets of the One Percent.
I mean, c'mon, what's so bad about policies that continue to allow 49 cents out of every dollar of profit to drop directly into the coffers of Big Financial Firms?
And what's so wrong about letting the Bankers transfer the middle class person's equity and wealth into their laps, while maintaining full control over the economic, and even the legal system, of this once great country?
Divernan
(15,480 posts)The Columbia Journalism Review is the bi-monthly publication of the top ranking and most respected Journalism program in the world. Doubtless some bots will be around shortly to attempt to discredit the whole thing because Chittum once shook hands with W, or some such nonsense.
Go to the link for some very intelligent readers' comments, including, but not limited to:
"All the well dressed, well educated, well groomed, well spoken crooks mentioned here belong to an organization called S.C.U.M. (Sociopaths Collecting Uber Money). Obama and his wife were just asked to join. They are being sponsored by Dianne Feinstein. The true Green Party."
"Bill Clinton has averaged $10 million per year income from "corporate speaking fees" since he left office. Daughter Chelsea walked into a $200,000 per year Wall Street gig straight out of college."
"Obama's stream of Wall Street appointees and unprecedented corporate welfare programs will assure that the same pot of gold awaits the Obama family in 2017."
"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it." - Frederic Bastiat
KoKo
(84,711 posts)How anyone can deny that the "Gang of Five" will Profit off their time in Obama Administration sort of defies logic.
And your links prove this isn't this poster posting from some RW Source. Like "Common Dreams" should EVER be called a RW Source when they know what the "Deal Is" anyway. But "Attacks are always here..."
Divernan
(15,480 posts)Last edited Wed Nov 20, 2013, 07:09 AM - Edit history (1)
They make up &/or falsely attribute language which they then attack; they attack posters for statements in subthreads by other posters; they ignore civil requests for links or documentation to their bizarre claims; and so on. They remind one of those snakes which keep snapping their mouths after their heads have been cut off.
I occasionally took continuing legal ed classes in the art of negotiating settlements. It's all about arriving at a realistic financial value for damages/injuries suffered and allocating responsibility for compensation among the parties. Because over 95% of civil claims settle without going to trial, negotiation skills are more important than courtroom performance skills. Like one injured plaintiff versus 3 defendants: a general contractor, a subcontractor and a supplier of a defective part. What the instructor cautioned us about was when you run into a party who is either insane or pretends insanity by refusing, in the face of overwhelming physical evidence and testimony of expert witnesses, to acknowledge any liability.
When in comes to bots, my question is whether they are truly insane to post nonsense and gibberish, or whether they are crazy like a fox and collecting $$$ per post when they post over 40 inane replies in a single thread.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Thank you for posting this.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Enrique
(27,461 posts)i'm confused.
KoKo
(84,711 posts)rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)the president really doesnt have much power when he gets to the WH. Maybe Pres Obama would like to fix the economy but when he got into office, some how he was convinced to leave economic systems the hell alone.
Although his love affairs with Summers and Pritzker, tends to make me think he isnt our friend.
The media crucifies him for a website malfunction yet ignore this. We're screwed.