And so the revolving door between Washington insiders and the finance industry continues to swirl round, without moral code, without restraint, without any shame. All while making a mockery of democracy and of fair minded people everywhere. What will it take for the people to demand change in this broken, lawless system that is costing the rest of our society so dearly? See NYT: Ben Bernanke will work for hedge fund Citadel as an Adviser
Mr. Bernanke will become a senior adviser to the Citadel Investment Group, the $25 billion hedge fund…
It is the latest and most prominent move by a Washington insider through the revolving door into the financial industry. Investors are increasingly looking for guidance on how to navigate an uncertain economic environment in the aftermath of the financial crisis and are willing to pay top dollar to former officials like Mr. Bernanke.
Mr. Bernanke joins a long parade of colleagues and peers to Wall Street and investment firms. After stepping down, Mr. Bernanke’s predecessor, Alan Greenspan, was recruited as a consultant for Deutsche Bank, the bond investment firm Pacific Investment Management Company and the hedge fund Paulson & Company.
Last month, Jeremy C. Stein, a former Fed governor, agreed to join the $20 billion hedge fund BlueMountain Capital Management, where he will advise managers on issues like financial regulation, risk and the implications of the Fed’s monetary policy.
Bernanke explains that he was sensitive to “the public’s anxieties about the “revolving door” between Wall Street and Washington and chose to go to Citadel, in part, because it “is not regulated by the Federal Reserve and I won’t be doing lobbying of any sort.”
What he failed to mention is that Citadel is one of the largest HFT (high frequency trading) firms in the world, who has made billions in commissions executing orders for the NY Fed in the QE ramp since 2009 and from frontrunning the investment trades of retail investors trying to ‘save’ for retirement. For his years of devoted Wall Street service–at the expense of the public purse– Mr Bernanke will now be free to dip into endless pots collecting ‘consulting’ and speaking fees from all the finance firms who can afford him. Good gig for them. Devastating for everybody else.
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