How Tim Geithner Gets $200,000 a Pop to Chat With Big Banks

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/economy/geithner-speaking-fees



Cashing in on the speaker circuit the minute you leave office is a well-traveled road in Washington. In recent decades, the number of speaking bureaus has mushroomed, and the negotiations often start even before the office is vacated. As Puff Daddy once sang, “ It’s All About the Benjamins.”

Some former “public servants” hop on the gravy train by taking up lobbying. But the speaker circuit is getting to be just as lucrative.

When they’re not pushing a discredited austerity agenda that harms the public and enriches the financial sector and the wealthy, Erskine Bowles (former White House chief of staff) and Alan Simpson (former senator from Wyoming) get their bread buttered on the speaker circuit to the tune of $40,000 a hit. (David Dayen notes that this is three times the amount that recipients of Social Security can expect in retirement per year.) Who is paying them? Behemoth banks like Bank of America and Manhattan investment groups, naturally.

Former president Bill Clinton blows right past Bowles and Simpson, raking in an estimated $106 million in speaking fees since leaving office, with individual payouts ranging from $28,000 to an eye-popping $750,000. Citigroup, Lehman, Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, and Goldman have paid him up to $425,000 a pop just to talk the sweet language of bank-friendly capitalism.

Former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has wasted not a moment to shove his snout in the financial sector speaking-engagement trough. Geithner’s bank-centric worldview dominated the White House in the aftermath of the financial crisis, doing untold damage to ordinary Americans. As renowned economist Simon Johnson has explained, “Geithner came to stand for providing large amounts of unconditional support for very big banks…” at the New York Federal Reserve and continued this pattern in Washington. He favored unqualified assistance to troubled banks rather than throwing out incompetent managers and directors or working to change harmful policies. The fact that we still have dangerous Too-Big-to-Fail banks on our hands is part of his dismal legacy.

[BlueStreak]

1. Anybody who thinks we have elected, representative government is nuts.

At least at the Federal level, our Congress, and even the President have become mostly irrelevant. We have seen how Wall Street has gotten 100% of anything they could ever want from this guy. No enforcement for the 2008 crimes. No regulations to give Dodd-Frank any teeth. Absolutely nothing. And then there is the Security Industrial Complex. Why do we even bother to act like we have a President?

[vi5]

2. It sucks that Republicans forced Obama to appoint him.

This is why we need to continue voting for more Democrats and to take back the House and get a 99 seat majority in the house. That is the only way!!!

[KG]

4. 80-20!

[kentuck]

3. They owe him.

He gave them the biggest Christmas present they ever had.

[Babel_17]

5. It's not so much about Geithner

It's about the banks and Wall Street and big business letting it be known to those currently in government, and those who will enter government, "Look, here's proof positive that there is for real a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for those who play ball."

This is a perversion of an element of our society that is actually useful. People with interesting life experiences should give talks and speeches. There's nothing wrong with receiving compensation from public minded groups for going about and talking. We don't want government sticking its nose into that but these oozing sores on the body politic are make that look like a good thing.

If we had real journalists they would ask top appointees if they were willing to announce that they wouldn't accept such unreasonable fees after leaving government. That would be a step towards eliminating this shameful pattern.