I know all his baby mama drama can’t be cheap, but still, as many others have remarked, this just plain sucks:
[T]he decision of Peter Orszag, until recently the director of the Office of Management and Budget under Barack Obama, to join Citibank in a senior position. Exactly how much it will pay is not clear, but informed guesses are several million dollars per year. Citibank, of course, was one of the institutions most notably dependent on federal help to survive in these past two years.
I also wonder what planet James Fallows is living on when he says this “shocking”. This is par for the course.
harlana
Just to be fair, I believe eemom posted a link to this article a couple of days ago and was pooh-poohed by a fellow commenter for doing so. Perhaps it was in an anti-Obama context, hence the pooh-poohing, can’t remember, just want to give credit where due.
ant
WTF.
This pisses me off.
beltane
It is shocking that this is par for the course. Millions of other Americans manage to have children without being a corrupt tool of usurers and thieves.
DougJ
@harlana
Really? I’ve been meaning to write about it for a while, but I wanted to hear something about the terms first.
Paul W.
Probably because Orzag was one of the “good guys”, along the lines of Goplsbee, rather than another Geithner or Summers. He fought the good fight, and I generally like his proposals so I can say that I am very much surprised as well… although I guess he will be expecting to have to feed more mouths soon.
I would still say his work as budget director was good, however post-retirement from the WH he has been an awfully big thorn in Obama’s side.
Comrade Dread
The revolving door between high level government ‘service’ and corporate boardrooms is well documented, unless you’ve been living in hole the last two decades or are being willfully obtuse.
In the case of the media, I’m pretty sure it’s the latter option, since they are generally part of the large corporations benefiting from the close business/government relationship.
ChrisS
A couple of million per year huh?
It would take me, at the median-ish household income, 45 more years to hit $2 million in gross earnings. I guess I should just shut up and eat my baloney sandwich and be thankful for it.
The Grand Panjandrum
@harlana: I remember that comment. Thought it interesting the no front pager jumped on it at the time.
But I’m with you DougJ, this is shocking? What’s shocking is that he took this long to do it. Of course, he did have to wait long enough to make sure Vikram Pandit wasn’t going to be charged with any criminal wrongdoing.
Sarcastro
Ever feel like you’ve been had?
Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)
If people don’t like Citibank and their affiliates (Travelers Insurance, The New York Mets) organize boycotts.
harlana
@DougJ: Yes, DougJ, I believe she posted it that Friday or Saturday.
cyntax
@The Grand Panjandrum:
Maybe he wanted to see what his income taxes would be before he finalized on salary.
JWL
It sucks, huh?
Do you mean in a Claude Rains sense? That is, “it sucks (wink-wink)”?
Or in the: “I’ve been caught flat-footed again, and feel like a fool” sense of the term?
ChrisS
@cyntax:
Maybe he wanted to see what his income taxes would be before he finalized on salary.
Or his salary was dependent on what income taxes would be.
cathyx
I’m sure he’s hoping to change the system from within.
Shalimar
I continue to be a little shocked at how cheap and unimportant these guys are when they get private sector jobs. For the US Government, Orszag was responsible for budgeting trillions. In the private sector, he is just another senior executive for one of the big banks.
DougJ
@harlana:
Well…whoever pooh-poohed it is wrong.
Loneoak
@DougJ:
@harlana:
It wasn’t eemom, it was liberal.
EDIT: I definitely poo-pooed it. Along with the link, liberal said “suck on this O-bots.” The point of Fallows article is that this is a systemic corruption, and the trolls twisted it 180-degrees to claim that it was an example of Obama’s personal corruption.
John O
Government, ironically, is where the money is.
srv
@Paul W.:
Here’s University of Chicago good guy Goolsbee waxing on, literally, about how “more perfect” the mortgage market is in 2007 and anyone who is worried is a whiney titty-baby.
You really can’t make this shit up.
dr. bloor
@ChrisS:
Nuh-uh. Several million. You’re going to have to work more than 45 years to catch CitiPeter.
harlana
@The Grand Panjandrum: Normally, my memory leaves something to be desired, don’t know why that stuck in my head. As for such news being “shocking,” perhaps that is the reason it was brushed off by the other commenter.
beltane
The Clash’s Sandinista album was released 30 years ago today http://www.examiner.com/rock-culture-in-new-york/30-years-ago-today-sandinista Not relevant to the discussion except as a study in contrasts.
harlana
@DougJ: Well, again to be fair, it may have been the context in which it was posted, as Loneoak states. Could have sworn it was eemom but then again, my memory is not all it should be.
Culture of Truth
Bartiromo interviewed Orzag this weekend. By his own description, he’s going to advise in a variety of areas, including global, etc. He’s very excited, and Maria was very happy for him.
ChrisS
@Shalimar:
The thing is that he probably doesn’t have to do anything anything now. His salary is secured. It’s the pay-off for keeping the status-quo in place.
DougJ
@beltane:
The Clash is always relevant, IMHO.
Rosalita
OT, but have to share the latest Simon’s cat offering
dollared
@beltane, I would say directly relevant. For example, James Fallows is a bit over 50. He would actually remember when our government and journalists had ethical standards.
And he was in his early 20s, a dangerous, impressionable age, when Sandinista came out.
Observer
@Paul W.:
Don’t know about that.
Back in early 2009 during the stimulus debate, the Obama crew said that without a stimulus unemployment would unacceptably rise to 9%.
Six months later even with a stimulus, unemployment hit 9%.
Someone lied or someone effed up badly on the numbers.
Don’t know who’s specifically to blame but Orszag is one of the members of the group that shares responsibility.
Zifnab
Hey, maybe folks at Citi will actually listen to Orzag’s proposals and act on his ideas. Obama was more than happy to toss budgets in the trash the moment Susan Collins offered him a wink and a smile and a promise of compromise over tax cuts.
Citi has enough assholes running the firm. It could use a few more Orzags. May he rise fast and go far.
Dennis SGMM
When my wife became pregnant with our son I simply went in and asked my boss for a $1,960,000 raise. He told me to stop smoking that shit and get the fuck back to running my lathe.
PeakVT
@Culture of Truth: That’s a
touchingdisturbing storyPurpleGirl
Orszag’s recent columns for the NY Times involved changes to Social Security and SS Disability Insurance. For all programs he suggested reductions and changes to aid formulas. He definitely is not our friend. He was a master of the universe i training, getting the political work on the resume and is now taking full advantage of it.
bemused
Sort of OT but not really. Thom Hartmann is talking with Peter Ferrara about tax cuts, etc and Ferrara is having a freak-out, screaming tantrum. Thom was saying to Ferrara very quietly as you would to a yelling toddler trying to calm him down, Peter….Peter….You’ve had too much coffee this morning, Peter.
It’s not the first time I’ve heard rightwingers do this on liberal radio shows, get all unhinged and hysterical when their favorite talking points are countered. It’s actually frightening to hear it.
Emerald
Hold on here. Didn’t the administration set up a new rule that ya couldn’t work for the Obama administration and then go right out and take a job with the bad guys?
So how did Orszag get around that?
Dennis SGMM
@Emerald:
Because, see, the banks are in no way bad guys. In fact, they’re like an extension of government – or vice versa.
Suffern ACE
A few million dollars. Pshaw. After all this, he won’t even become a wealthy man.
PurpleGirl
@Emerald: Probably the handful of months he was a columnist for the NY Times… he didn’t go to Citi right away.
cyntax
@ChrisS:
Zing!
And a little depressing.
PurpleGirl
(I’m having problems today editing comments).
Orszag also spent some time as Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Think Tank welfare.
ChrisWWW
It’s high time we give that man a tax cut!
Erik Vanderhoff
Orzag’s new wife is a Good Morning America anchor. What, her salary’s not enough?
cyntax
@Observer:
FWIW, I remember reading that Christina Romer (whom Goolsbee replaced) was pushing for a bigger stimulus but her estimates never made it into the numbers Obama’s economic team brought to him. If true, that seems like the President’s team let him down.
DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective
I absolutely agree that a condition of employment, for people in Orszag’s line of work and at his level, offered a job in government, should be …
By the way, if you take this job, you can’t go back to working in your industry again for anyone who was affected by your work in government. You will be unemployable, by law. Of course, you can always start a blog, or get a job at FoxNews.
That would be a great recruiting tool.
ChrisS
@DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective:
I can’t pick up the dinner tab for a deputy project manager from USACE while on a site visit, but Citi or Goldman (or KBR-Halliburton, Chevron) could essentially buy that project manager if they made the right decisions while presumably acting in the best interest of USACE. I guess my company could hire that PM as well, but well, there’s where the law is a bit loose. Rather than on the dinner side of things.
Ruckus
@Sarcastro:
Ever feel like you’ve been had?
Almost every day. Sometimes more than once per day. So it all averages out.
A L
Gee, it’s not like Taibbi’s been writing about this very thing happening all the time. Oh wa
andrewsomething
@DougJ
My impression when I read this the other day was that Fallows whole point was that this should be “shocking,” but unfortunately it is par for the course.
Here’s his conclusion:
DonkeyKong
“This is paradise, I’m tellin’ ya. This town like a great big pussy just waiting to get fucked.” Peter Orszag doing his best Tony Montana after Citi offered him the “position”
Tim
This is change we can believe in, folks.
Mike M
I recall just recently all the hand wringing over the assertion that the number of government employees making $150K or above had risen substantially under Obama. The popular notion is that if you work for the government, you ought to do it out of an outsized sense of public service, and if you’re bring home more than the manager of the local deli you ought to be shot, or at least waiting on the unemployment lines like the rest of us.
Wall Street salaries are outrageous in any context, but Orszag’s case points out the difficulty of attracting and retaining skilled people in government. I imagine that some government regulators and auditors must feel like chumps sitting across the table from the Masters of the Universe they are charged with monitoring.
I recruit engineering and science students for my alma matter, one of the nation’s elite schools for nerds, and prospective students tell me all the time how they struggle with whether to go into a technical field where they might make $100K-$200K in their prime or instead set their eyes on big finance where they can bring in millions.
Corporate compensation is seriously out of balance, but until shareholders revolt I don’t see anything changing. Congress is certainly not going to get involved, regardless of which party is in charge. And I don’t think that more laws barring government officials from working in industry is going to do much except force government to choose among C students from community colleges.
burnspbesq
OK, so let me see if I understand what’s being proposed here.
Are y’all saying that no one who spends one day in government service, in any capacity, should ever be able to leave government service?
Or are you saying that there should be a cap, equal to some multiple of the person’s final government salary, on what the person can earn in the private sector?
As someone who spun the revolving door, from private practice to the office of chief counsel of the IRS back to private practice, I can assure you that Mike M’s comment above reflects the reality of the situation. Either of those alternatives would eliminate the government’s ability to recruit competitively, except in the limited case of people who are at the end of their careers, have made all the money they need to make, and want to give something back. And when Rodge Cohen, who knows more about banking regulation than anyone who has ever lived, was ready to go from Sullivan & Cromwell to Treasury under exactly those circumstances, y’all had a fucking conniption.
Triassic Sands
Maybe he should have said the it should be shocking.
This is just further evidence of how corrupt our system has become. And the people charged with fixing it are the very people who regularly benefit from it.
I guess it’s time to file the “appearance of impropriety” under Quaint right next to the Geneva Conventions.
burnspbesq
FWIW, half of my exit interview when I left the IRS was devoted to a discussion of 18 USC Section 207.
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/usc.cgi?ACTION=RETRIEVE&FILE=$$xa$$busc18.wais&start=404840&SIZE=77723&TYPE=TEXT
burnspbesq
@Triassic Sands:
Nope. Click on the link in my comment 55 and see if you still think that.
Fuck U II: The Duckening
FWIW, Burnsy has already stated that his time in gov’t. was an ‘investment in his career’ and that he would work for the gov’t. again, but ya can’t raise little Dookies or make the club dues on that kind of money.
Also, Burns wants you to know that people who make more than 250k a year also struggle with their finances and worry if jr. will have to go to a public school.
burnspbesq
@Fuck U II: The Duckening:
If you have a point that goes beyond a truly stupid ad hominem attack, it’s awfully obscure. Try again.
NYT
The guy Obama appointed to replace Orszag, Jacob Lew, is a former hedge fund manager from Citi.
See, no revolving door there.
DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective
@ChrisS:
I have no idea what you think you said has to do with what I said.
If the issue is “revolving door” then the government can only hire people who already work for government, and will just move around within the government all their lives. Government service precludes private sector employment, especially in the same line of work.
(We’d have to invent special schools and education paths that led to permanent government service, with lifetime conscription. How people get kidnapped into the scheme … we still have to work that out).
Am I missing something?
I didn’t think so.
burnspbesq
@DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective:
ENA-USA?
MNPundit
@beltane: This was fallows point too IIRC.
TheStone333
Did anybody ever really doubt that this court eunuch would end up where he currently is? I am surprised it took this long. You would think he had done enough schmoozing in the White House to justify big $$$ from Citi months ago.