Geithner Aides Reaped Millions Working for Banks, Hedge Funds

[kpete]

Source: Bloomberg

Geithner Aides Reaped Millions Working for Banks, Hedge Funds

By Robert Schmidt

Oct. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Some of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s closest aides, none of whom faced Senate confirmation, earned millions of dollars a year working for Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Citigroup Inc. and other Wall Street firms, according to financial disclosure forms.

The advisers include Gene Sperling, who last year took in $887,727 from Goldman Sachs and $158,000 for speeches mostly to financial companies, including the firm run by accused Ponzi scheme mastermind R. Allen Stanford. Another top aide, Lee Sachs, reported more than $3 million in salary and partnership income from Mariner Investment Group, a New York hedge fund.

As part of Geithner’s kitchen cabinet, Sperling and Sachs wield influence behind the scenes at the Treasury Department, where they help oversee the $700 billion banking rescue and craft executive pay rules and the revamp of financial regulations. Yet they haven’t faced the public scrutiny given to Senate-confirmed appointees, nor are they compelled to testify in Congress to defend or explain the Treasury’s policies.

“These people are incredibly smart, they’re incredibly talented and they bring knowledge,” said Bill Brown, a visiting professor at Duke University School of Law and former managing director at Morgan Stanley. “The risk is they will further exacerbate the problem of our regulators identifying with Wall Street.”

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=abo3Zo0ifzJg

[MidwestRick]

1. I'm glad they are bringing them in

it shows they are using aides that know the system. So what if they made a lot of money before taking these jobs? They have taken a drastic cut in pay to help assist the administration.

[No Elephants]

4. And will get even better jobs/salaries when they leave--provided they serve

their former employers well.

Take a look at the head of the SEC, for one. Worked for Clinton, got a cushy job in the private sector, where she did some shady things. Now back in government. Will probably make a couple of million on a book and speaking fees after she leaves "public service," as well as getting any job she wants.

BTW, learning "the system" ain't all that hard. It doesn't take an insider or a rocket scientist. Besides, the system changes all the time anyway.

[Demeter]

5. Whose side are they on, though?

The odds are they side with the banks, not the people.

[midnight]

7. Can you tell me what there pay was, and what cut they took?

[MidwestRick]

12. The adviser listed

in the article made roughly 1 million dollars last year. Since I'm not sure of his current title with the administration, I'm not sure what his pay is. With that said the Secretary of the Treasury has a salary of 191k, so I would think an advisor would make less than that.

[AllentownJake]

13. The FBI when it recruits hackers and other criminals

to fight criminals does so under close supervision. It doesn't hire criminals and than make them department heads.

[glitch]

15. No kidding -- department heads with massive unaudited discretionary budgets.

What a sick joke.

[AllentownJake]

16. It really is perverse isn't it

What is almost even more perverse is people buying into the argument that people who worked at the most ruthless Wall Street firms have decided, out of duty to their country, they will step down from those vaulted positions to serve the interest of the common man.

I don't know what makes it a sicker joke, that they do it or people buy into that them doing it is somehow beneficial to them.

[glitch]

18. A lot of people don't get how Very Long Very Big "Too Big To Fail" Cons work.

This ones been going on for decades.

And they really don't get how empty these people truly are, there will be no noble urge for redemption calling them to clean up the mess they helped to create.

If the intention were to really clean up this mess the people running the show would have hired the people with integrity who saw the sacking of our entire system and shouted alarms about it, quite a few people who lost their careers because they wouldn't play along with the scams.

[sabrina 1]

45. I don't believe they are there to clean up a mess, I believer they are

there to save the racket they all got rich from and which was in serious danger of disappearing. This is what they are fixing. Their only interests are self-interests. If anyone thinks these are the kind of people who are going to care one bit about the American people, they are dreaming.

I'll wait a little longer before making a decision about why Obama has chosen to make them his advisers, but it doesn't make him look good right now. Especially since everything is going great for Wall St. while nothing is improving for the rest of the country. I can only go by what I see. All the rhetoric in the world won't convince anyone that the sky is not blue unless that is what they want to believe.

[glitch]

48. Sadly agreed. However,

I am keeping a infinitesimally tiny sliver of a crack open to being pleasantly astonished at some point in the future (I am certainly not seeing any signs for hope or optimism at present).

[yurbud]

28. the pay cut is a form of investment--they will make it back by protecting their industry

from real reform or rigging the system for their next crime.

They are running the same scam as Dick Cheney. If you work for an employer who pays you ten or a hundred times more than you make in public service both before and after that public job, isn't it likely you are STILL working for that employer WHILE in public office?

[girl gone mad]

42. There are plenty of people who know the system..

and don't have vested interests in doing the bidding of their once and future employers.

One need only look at the damage Rubin did on his way in and out of the revolving door.

[sabrina 1]

44. So what? They have a conflict of interest. They certainly are

not the kind of people who are going look out for the public, you know, the people who bailed them out. As for them being smart? What is smart about taking advantage of a lot of other people? If they were that smart, how come they did not see what was about to happen to this country's economy? Or worse, if they did see it but did nothing about it.

I would like to see some people in this administration's cabinet who have zero ties to the people who caused the problem. Until then, I know that Wall St's interests will always come first. And if as Marcy Kaptur pointed out, Main St. continues to suffer as it is right now, people will not be worried about how smart these people are supposed to be in 2010 and 2012.

[No Elephants]

2. We were too quiet too long. K Street owns the government. and has for a while. And we still do

nothing, thinking it is somehow our fault for not electing more Democrats.

[jeffbr]

3. Fox guarding the henhouse

Same old shit.

[LuckyLib]

36. Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner. "Fox in the henhouse" is the right

term for Geithner, Summers, and the whole motley crew.

[midnight]

6. This kitchen sounds like it needs to have the GAO do some

cleaning...

[Po_d Mainiac]

8. The kitchen needs a good hot

grease fire, with the exits blocked and windows barred. Might as well toss in a discharged fire extinguisher for shits and giggles.

[Myrina]

9. sounds just like Cheney's "Energy Task Force"

:puke: Corrupt and self-serving.

I get more disgusted with this Administration every day. :(

[pjt7]

10. Ha! HA! SUCKERS!

WALL STREET OWNS YA.

[AllentownJake]

11. and the Hope and Change continues!

Honestly, its hard to read these articles without laughing at the absurdity of the situation.

[flyarm]

19. +1

[CountAllVotes]

14. gee that is not the kind of Change I voted for

why the hell don't them dump this fool? Answer: He plays the game very well! :nuke:

:kick: & recommend.!!

[flyarm]

20. because he grew up with Obama in Indonesia? Maybe?? And Obama's mom worked with Geithner's dad

with the Ford Foundation in Indonesia perhaps?????

and do look up the connections of the Ford Foundation..and many believe it was a front for the CIA.

Oh and do look at Timmy's bio..and his connections to Kissinger..you know the guy who's nickname is the Butcher of Cambodia...and his connections to the CFR and was the President of the Federal Reserve of NY..

Go ahead look him up..I posted about him alot, but people ingored it.

People tend to do that until they get hit directly in their own pocket book or lose their own jobs!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Geithner

http://www.ustreas.gov/organization/bios/geithner-e.shtml

[slipslidingaway]

17. knr - a few snips from Bill Moyers last week ...

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10092009/transcript4.html

"MARCY KAPTUR: That says to me that Wall Street and Washington is a circuit. And because Mr.Geithner headed the New York Fed that that historic relationship, unfortunately, continues. And it gives them special access and special power to influence policy.

...MARCY KAPTUR: And they also move people. In other words, Mr. Geithner came from the New York Fed, he came from Wall Street, and he becomes Secretary of the Treasury. His predecessor, Mr. Paulson, came from Goldman Sachs, and he becomes Secretary of Treasury. You can go back decades, and you will see that there's this revolving door between Wall Street and Washington.

...SIMON JOHNSON: Remember Wall Street convinced us that trading derivatives without any regulation, that all these kind of crazy housing loans, which are very dangerous for consumers. That all of this was sensible. All of this was a good way to sustain growth. That was wrong. That wasn't it. That wasn't that's not the end of the story. In the crisis, when things got bad, they also convinced the key people in Washington that they, the bankers, the big bankers, the Wall Street bankers, who are really responsible for all of these problems, they should be saved. Not just their banks, but they individually and should be saved. Their jobs, their pensions, all their perks. It's an extraordinary moment.


...SIMON JOHNSON: To spend more time in Washington, more time cultivating all those relationships on Capital Hill and in the executive branch. And you know what else Jamie Dimon said to his shareholders? To his shareholders meeting this year, he said, with regard to 2008, the year of what we regard as the greatest financial crisis, an absolute human tragedy. He said, Jamie Dimon said to his shareholders, 'This was perhaps our best year ever.' ..."

[high density]

21. So would we rather have people who stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night do this stuff instead?

We need people who know the system, and it's not unheard of for people to go work for competitors. The press does seem to have a bias against Democrats that make money, while infinite greed on the GOP side is fine.

[jakefrep]

22. Apparently, yes. n/t

[AllentownJake]

23. Forgive me for sounding crazy

I think there are plenty of people out there that understand the system that don't work on Wall Street.

This is the typical revolving door bullshit that has been going on for 30 years that has led us to the place we are in.

[flyarm]

24. well i sure as hell don't want a Kissinger protoge working with a dem president..the same

fucker who got us into this mess..a protoge of Kissinger and Larry Summers..

and what was one of the first things Obama did in office..oh yeah..sent Kissinger to Russia to represent his administration..wow...I feel all warm and fuzzy about that fucking shit!

[flyarm]

25. "We need people who know the system,"...or better yet we don't need the same people who gamed and

fucked us with the system still in place gouging us more and more each day!

One fucking by these bastards WAS ENOUGH FOR ME ..THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

[flyarm]

27. What we are seeing is a Financial Oligarchy ..run by a few with all the power over all of us.

from my journal:


What we are seeing is a Financial Oligarchy ..run by a few with all the power over all of us.
Posted by flyarm in Latest Breaking News
Mon Jul 20th 2009, 01:11 AM
Look who Obama has appointed to his Executive Branch...and their memberships to elite groups.



Timothy Geithner, Secretary of Treasury..former Pres of the Federal Reserve Bank
Bilderberg Group, Trilateral Commission, CFR

Ambassador to UN Susan Rice..Trilateral Commission

National Security Advisor, Gen James L. Jones: Bilderberg Group, Trilateral Comm, CFR

Deputy National Security Advisor, Thomas Donilon: CFR

Special State Dept Speical Envoy, Henry Kissinger: Bilderberg Group, Trilateral Commission, CFR

Chairman of Economic Recovery Committee, Paul Volcker: Bilderberg Group , Trilateral Comm., CFR

Larry Summers:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Summ...


There are powers at work invested in marginalizing the truth tellers, they try to divide us and sub- divide us to take us into a financial Oligarchy..don't let them!

snip:
As Treasury Secretary, Summers led the Clinton Administration's opposition to tax cuts proposed by the Republican Congress in 1999. <10> Also during his stint in the Clinton Administration, Summers was successful in pushing for capital gains tax cuts. During the California energy crisis of 2000, then-Treasury Secretary Summers teamed with Alan Greenspan and Enron executive Kenneth Lay to lecture California Governor Gray Davis on the causes of the crisis, explaining that the problem was excessive government regulation.<11> Under the advice of Kenneth Lay, Summers urged Davis to relax California's environmental standards in order to reassure the markets.<12>

Summers hailed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999, which lifted more than six decades of restrictions against banks offering commercial banking, insurance, and investment services (by repealing key provisions in the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act): "Today Congress voted to update the rules that have governed financial services since the Great Depression and replace them with a system for the 21st century," Summers said.<13> "This historic legislation will better enable American companies to compete in the new economy."<13> Many critics, including President Barack Obama, have suggested the 2007 subprime mortgage financial crisis was caused by the partial repeal of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act.<14>


snip:

National Economic Council
In 2009, he was tapped by President Obama to be the director of the White House National Economic Council<1><31>. He has emerged as a key economic decision-maker in the Obama administration, where he has attracted both praise and criticism. There has been friction between Summers and former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, as Volcker has accused Summers of delaying the effort to organize a panel of outside economic advisers, and has cut Volcker out of White House meetings and has not shown interest in collaborating on policy solutions to the current economic crisis. <32> On the other hand, Obama himself was reportedly thrilled with the work Summers did in his first few weeks on the job. And Peter Orzag, andother top economic advisor, calls Summers "one of the world’s most brilliant economists." <33>

In January 2009, as the Obama Administration tried to pass an economic stimulus spending bill, Oregon Democratic Representative Peter DeFazio criticized Summers, saying that he thought that President Barack Obama is "ill-advised by Larry Summers. Larry Summers hates infrastructure." <34>. DeFazio, along with liberal economists including Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz, has argued that more of the stimulus should be spent on infrastructure,<35> while Summers has supported tax cuts.

Summers has recently come under fire for accepting perks from Citigroup, including free rides on its corporate jet last summer.<36> According to the Wall Street Journal, Larry Summers called Chris Dodd asking him to remove caps on executive pay at firms which have received stimulus money, including Citigroup. <37>

On April 3, 2009 Summers came under renewed criticism after it was disclosed that he was paid millions of dollars the previous year by companies which he now has influence over as a public servant. He earned $5 million from the hedge fund D. E. Shaw, and collected $2.7 million in speaking fees from Wall Street companies that received government bailout money.<38>

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

and From an April post of mine here at DU: and please, don't believe me click the link..it was in the CFR publication!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Remarks by National Security Adviser Jones at 45th Munich Conference on Security Policy

Published February 8, 2009
Speaker: James L. Jones


U.S. National Security Adviser Jones ( edit to add: new advisor hired by Obama!!!!) gave these remarks at the 45th Munich Conference on Security Policy at the Hotel Bayerischer Hof on February 8, 2009.

"Thank you for that wonderful tribute to Henry Kissinger yesterday. Congratulations. As the most recent National Security Advisor of the United States, I take my daily orders from Dr. Kissinger, filtered down through General Brent Scowcroft and Sandy Berger, who is also here. We have a chain of command in the National Security Council that exists today.


Source: http://www.cfr.org/publication/18515/remar ... ...

[Vidar]

30. Great rogue's gallery. Thank you.

[girl gone mad]

43. Yeah, because those are our only two choices

Either we hire an interested man or an idiot.

:eyes:

The ignorance of those who would defend this kind of corruption ASTOUNDS me. But perhaps it isn't ignorance at all.

[natrat]

47. yes alot of posters on web sites like this are employed by the junta one way or another

really dumb on the surface but probably put out there to help damp the backlash as smarter people realize the scam. I would guess some pr firm represents 20% of the posts on this forum.

[bobthedrummer]

26. Real life "Chicago Boys"...K&R

[rollingrock]

33. Chicago boy Rahm Emanuel

Rahm Emanuel, himself a former Wall Street bank executive, was on the board of directors at Freddie Mac when it came under investigation by the SEC for a huge accounting scandal. Freddie mac eventually agreed to pay a $50 million fine as a result, without admitting any wrongdoing. Unaware to most, Emanuel was one of the key players at Freddie Mac who helped lay the groundwork for the current housing foreclosure/banking crisis. He now sits in the WH as the powerful chief of staff.




----------------
Chicago Tribune

...On Emanuel's watch, the board was told by executives of a plan to use accounting tricks to mislead shareholders about outsize profits the government-chartered firm was then reaping from risky investments. The goal was to push earnings onto the books in future years, ensuring that Freddie Mac would appear profitable on paper for years to come and helping maximize annual bonuses for company brass.

The accounting scandal wasn't the only one that brewed during Emanuel's tenure.

During his brief time on the board, the company hatched a plan to enhance its political muscle. That scheme, also reviewed by the board, led to a record $3.8 million fine from the Federal Election Commission for illegally using corporate resources to host fundraisers for politicians. Emanuel was the beneficiary of one of those parties after he left the board and ran in 2002 for a seat in Congress from the North Side of Chicago.

....One of Emanuel's fellow directors at Freddie Mac was Neil Hartigan, the former Illinois attorney general. Hartigan said Emanuel's primary contribution was explaining to others on the board how to play the levers of power.

He was respected on the board for his understanding of "the dynamics of the legislative process and the executive branch at senior levels," Hartigan recalled. "I wouldn't say he was outspoken. What he was, was solid."

By the time Emanuel joined Freddie Mac, the company had begun to loosen lending standards and buy riskier sub-prime loans. It was a practice that later blew up and contributed to the current foreclosure crisis.

In his investigation, Falcon concluded that the board of directors on which Emanuel sat was so pliant that Freddie Mac's managers easily were able to massage company ledgers. They manipulated bookkeeping to smooth out volatility, perpetuating Freddie Mac's industry reputation as "Steady Freddie," a reliable producer of earnings growth. Wall Street liked what it saw, Freddie Mac's stock value soared and top executives collected their bonuses.

Another focus of Freddie during Emanuel's day—and one that played to his skill set—was a stepped-up effort to combat congressional demands for more regulation.

During a September 2000 board meeting—midway through Emanuel's 14-month term—Freddie Mac lobbyist R. Mitchell Delk laid out a strategy titled "Political Risk Management" aimed at influencing lawmakers and blunting pressure in Congress for more regulation. Through Delk's initiative, Freddie Mac sponsored more than 80 fundraisers that raised at least $1.7 million for congressional candidates despite a federal law that bans corporations from direct political activity....more

[spaten]

29. are the best police former criminals?

It would be an advantage if they were REALLY regulating, but they arent and everyone knows it.
And their closest friends are still the criminals and they obviously plan on returning to the finicial sector after they pretend to do this job.

[Vidar]

31. Time to clean house. Recommended.

[mullard12ax7]

32. I'm just so happy! Criminals run everything but I love my team! RAH RAH!

Somebody actually posted that they are happy these crooks are in the administration; all I can say is God Damn, how f-ing stupid and corrupt can Americans get.

[flyarm]

34. I am sure there are a few folks around here that would lovvvvvve to share their pom poms...

they loveeeeeeee..to tell us all to sit down and shut up..they post around here.."everything is beautiful".......

now i remember..i used to hate that song.......

[BeHereNow]

39. So you've noticed too?

Lemmings running off the cliff.
That is what I see.
No different than the folks who though Bush was a "man of GAWD."

BHN

[Angry Dragon]

35. Again

This is just one more example of the abuse of the system that we have. Until we fix the system we have it will just continue on as it has for a long time. I do not know the best way to fix it, but it is broken. Until laws are passed and the greedy are punished it will continue.

[BeHereNow]

37. Don't hold your breath on the fixing part-

That would require people to understand the problem.
So far, the majority don't.

BHN

[unkachuck]

38. the crime and corruption....

....in Washington is second only to the crime and corruption in Kabol....maybe

[BeHereNow]

40. K&R and THANK YOU KPETE!!!!

Thank you for all that you do.
BHN

[earth mom]

41. K & R! nt

[natrat]

46. change you can believe in