Fresh on the heels of former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke landing at Citadel, the world’s most leveraged hedge fund, the revolving door continues as rumours were confirmed last night by Bloomberg that Hillary Clinton will name Gary Gensler as her pick for Treasury Secretary.
This should come as little surprise given recently this position was occupied by another Goldmanite, Timothy Geithner.
Gensler was most recently head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (2009 until 2014) where he allowed Wall Street firms to manipulate, rig, and otherwise abuse the US commodity market which he was supposed to supervise.
Many would argue Gensler was just simply protecting his former colleagues from civil or criminal investigation and prosecution. After all Gensler is far better known for not only having worked at Goldman Sachs for 18 years most recently as co-head of finance, prior to joining the CFTC, but for becoming the youngest ever Goldman partner, at the tender age of 30.
Gensler also holds the title of being the wealthiest member of the original Obama administration with 2009 reported net assets of between $15,533,000 and $61,745,000. From these massive number it appears that because he had been paid well at Goldman he now has a duty to his former employer: to keep Goldman (or any other Wall Street bank) off the hook of any regulatory investigation.
It will be interesting to see how Clinton’s “grass roots” campaign centered around Hillary as everyday American spins this choice.
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