http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f012c4b2-b8f6-11de-98ee-00144feab49a.html
Obama administration officials now working on fixing and regulating the financial system were beneficiaries of several million dollars in pay from Wall Street and private equity companies, it has been revealed.
Financial disclosure forms show that prior to joining the government, Gene Sperling, a senior Treasury adviser, was paid $887,727 by Goldman Sachs and $158,000 for speeches to companies that included Stanford Group, the company run by Sir Allen Stanford, who has since been charged with fraud.
Mr Sperling’s compensation from Goldman was for work on a philanthropic project. His overall pay, including for his main job at the Council on Foreign Relations, totalled $2.2m in the 13 months to January.
The forms, which were first obtained by Bloomberg, showed that Matthew Kabaker, another adviser in the Treasury, earned $5.8m at Blackstone, the private equity firm, in the two years before joining the administration to work on plans to support banks and spur lending. Much of the compensation was in stock.
Lewis Alexander, another adviser, was chief economist to Citigroup before joining the administration; he was paid $2.4m in the last two years.
Even though some of the officials whose previous salaries were disclosed are senior, many were appointed as “counselors”, meaning they escaped Senate confirmation hearings which could have highlighted their past remuneration and employment at a time of heightened animosity towards the financial industry.
Earlier this month the release of the telephone call logs of Tim Geithner, Treasury secretary, showed he had numerous conversations with a number of Wall Street executives, sparking allegations that the administration was too close to the industry
