"Jack Lew – said by those who know to be a skilled and principled public servant – ran hedge funds"

[midnight]

Jack Lew is now the White House Chief of Staff...


"When we saw it on the website Gawker.com we had to smile -- but the smile didn’t last long. There’s simply too much truth in that headline; it says a lot about how Wall Street and Washington have colluded to create the winner-take-all economy that rewards the very few at the expense of everyone else.
President Barack Obama with new chief of staff Jack Lew, formerly of Citigroup (Photo: AP /Charles Dharapak)

The story behind it is that Jack Lew is President Obama’s new chief of staff -- arguably the most powerful office in the White House that isn’t shaped like an oval. He used to work for the giant banking conglomerate Citigroup. His predecessor as chief of staff is Bill Daley, who used to work at the giant banking conglomerate JPMorgan Chase, where he was maestro of the bank’s global lobbying and chief liaison to the White House.

Daley replaced Obama’s first chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, who once worked as a rainmaker for the investment bank now known as Wasserstein & Company, where in less than three years he was paid a reported eighteen and a half million dollars.

The new guy, Jack Lew – said by those who know to be a skilled and principled public servant – ran hedge funds and private equity at Citigroup, which means he’s a member of the Wall Street gang, too. His last job was as head of President Obama’s Office of Management and Budget, where he replaced Peter Orzag, who now works as vice chairman for global banking at – hold onto your deposit slip -- Citigroup."tp://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/24-3

[frazzled]

1. So did John Edwards

For the same amount of time (a couple of years in the mid-aughts). And all his supporters here found nothing to see in it in 2008 (surprisingly).

Jacob Lew has spent the bulk of his career in public service, and as even this article suggests, he is well liked by liberal Democrats in Congress and is known to be principled. We can obsess over the few years spent at Citibank, or we can see what he does.