"New Chief of Staff: Former Hedge Fund Exec. at Citigroup, Made Money Off Mortgage Defaults
Daniel Halper
January 9, 2012 5:56 PM
President Obama's first chief of staff Rahm Emanuel once sat on the board of troubled federal mortgage giant Freddie Mac. Bill Daley, the president's chief of staff whose departure was announced today, was previously a top executive at financial firm J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. So of course there should be little surprise that Obama's latest chief of staff, announced today by the president himself, also has deep ties to the financial industry himself.
From 2006-2008, Jack Lew was chief operating officer of Citibank's alternative investments division. And it was his division that made billions of dollars betting "U.S. homeowners would not be able to make their mortgage payments," as the Huffington Post reported.
The piece also reported: “Lew made millions at Citi, including a bonus of nearly $950,000 in 2009 just a few months after the bank received billions of dollars in a taxpayer rescue, according to disclosure forms filed with the federal government. The bank is still partly owned by taxpayers.”
Of course, one should not begrudge Lew his personal, professional, and financial successes. But one might wonder what kind of message the president is sending with this appointment.
“I welcome constructive input from folks in the financial sector. But what we’ve seen so far, in recent weeks, is an army of industry lobbyists from Wall Street descending on Capitol Hill to try and block basic and common-sense rules of the road that would protect our economy and the American people,” Obama said in 2010. “So if these folks want a fight, that’s a fight I’m ready to have.”
In announcing Lew today, the president mentioned his previous work at the State Department and in the Clinton administration. Obama did not mention Lew's past of making billions of dollars for Citibank just a few years ago. "
And they will attack Mitt Romney - or the Rep nominee, whoever it will be - for the same thing.
Don't kid yourself about the Dems motivations! they simply have no shame - and that is a deadly characteristic.
From 2006-2008, Jack Lew was chief operating officer of Citibank's alternative investments division. And it was his division that made billions of dollars betting "U.S. homeowners would not be able to make their mortgage payments," as the Huffington Post reported.
The piece also reported: “Lew made millions at Citi, including a bonus of nearly $950,000 in 2009 just a few months after the bank received billions of dollars in a taxpayer rescue, according to disclosure forms filed with the federal government. The bank is still partly owned by taxpayers.”
Of course, one should not begrudge Lew his personal, professional, and financial successes. But one might wonder what kind of message the president is sending with this appointment.
“I welcome constructive input from folks in the financial sector. But what we’ve seen so far, in recent weeks, is an army of industry lobbyists from Wall Street descending on Capitol Hill to try and block basic and common-sense rules of the road that would protect our economy and the American people,” Obama said in 2010. “So if these folks want a fight, that’s a fight I’m ready to have.”
In announcing Lew today, the president mentioned his previous work at the State Department and in the Clinton administration. Obama did not mention Lew's past of making billions of dollars for Citibank just a few years ago. "
And they will attack Mitt Romney - or the Rep nominee, whoever it will be - for the same thing.
Don't kid yourself about the Dems motivations! they simply have no shame - and that is a deadly characteristic.
One day after ingeniously adopting the blog as my homepage I was rewarded with a post! There are some many reasons for the government not to be involved in bailouts, one of the most obvious being private gain. Have they never heard of learning from your mistakes? The fact that the government gets involved to begin with is crazy enough, but then they are so laissez-faire about how the money is used. I can't understand how these executives are looked at all that differently than someone running a Ponzi scheme, where is the outrage? Instead of outrage they are rewarded with one of the most influential positions in our government. Seems like there are currently more "checks" than balances. Hopefully that will change with the next administration.
ReplyDeleteWelcome! "Where's the outrage?" A good question. The country is evidently unable to express its outrage, although I suspect it exists. You won't remember when Bob Dole, the Rep candidate for President in 1996, asked the same question over all the scandals with the Clintons. He couldn't get an answer.
ReplyDeleteThe answer is that the Dems have no shame and are covered by the Main Stream Media - so no outrage on that side - and the Reps are too busy tending to their own business (working, etc) to reflect outrage on something that does not have immediate effect on themselves or family.
Hope is the country as a whole will wake up and force our politicians to put country first instead of their friends!