January/February 2010 Issue

The Bankers on Obama’s Team

The latest round of Wall Street muckety-mucks now in charge of regulation.

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


GOLDMAN SACHS CEO turned Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson wasn’t the first, or the last, to use the revolving door between Wall Street and Washington. Here’s a short list of Obama officials who got their start in the private sector—many, like Paulson, at “Government Sachs.”

OFFICIAL

CURRENT ROLE IN WASHINGTON

PREVIOUS ROLE ON WALL STREET

Neal Wolin

Deputy secretary of the treasury (Tim Geithner’s No. 2)

Exec at one of the largest insurance and investment firms

Mark Patterson

Treasury secretary’s chief of staff

Goldman Sachs lobbyist

Gene Sperling

Counselor to the treasury secretary

Made nearly $900,000 advising Goldman Sachs

Larry Summers

Obama’s chief economic adviser

Made $5 million as managing director of a hedge fund

Rahm Emanuel

White House chief of staff

Made $16 million as a partner at a Chicago investment bank

Herbert Allison

Assistant secretary of the treasury (oversees TARP)

Longtime exec at Merrill Lynch; headed Fannie Mae

Kim Wallace

Assistant secretary of the treasury for legislative affairs

Managing director at Barclays Capital and Lehman Brothers

Karthik Ramanathan

Acting assistant treasury secretary for financial markets

Foreign exchange dealer at Goldman Sachs

Matthew Kabaker

Deputy assistant secretary of the treasury

Made $5.8 million at the Blackstone Group in 2008-2009

Lewis Alexander

Counselor to the treasury secretary

Chief economist at Citigroup; paid $2.4 million in 2008-2009

Adam Storch

Managing executive of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement

VP of Goldman Sachs’ Business Intelligence Group

Lee Sachs

Counselor to the treasury secretary

Made more than $3 million at a New York hedge fund

Gary Gensler

Chairman of Commodity Futures Trading Commission

18 years at Goldman Sachs, where he made partner

Michael Froman

Deputy assistant to Obama, deputy nat’l security adviser

Managing director of a Citigroup investment arm

This chart is part of Mother Jones’ coverage of the financial crisis, one year later.

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate