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Financial Industry Paid Millions to Obama Aide
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of New York Times
Posted: April 11th, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/04/us/politics/04disclose.htm...
Lawrence H. Summers, the top economic adviser to President Obama, earned more than $5 million last year from the hedge fund D. E. Shaw and collected $2.7 million in speaking fees from Wall Street companies that received government bailout money, the White House disclosed. Mr. Summers, the director of the National Economic Council, wields important influence over Mr. Obamas policy decisions for the troubled financial industry, including firms from which he recently received payments. Last year, he reported making 40 paid appearances, including a $135,000 speech to the investment firm Goldman Sachs, in addition to his earnings from the hedge fund, a sector the administration is trying to regulate. Mr. Summerss role at the White House includes advising Mr. Obama on whether and how to tighten regulation of hedge funds, which engage in highly sophisticated financial trading that many analysts have said contributed to the economic collapse. Mr. Summers ... appeared before large Wall Street companies like Citigroup ($45,000), J. P. Morgan ($67,500) and the now defunct Lehman Brothers ($67,500), according to his disclosure report. While Mr. Obama campaigned on a pledge to restrict lobbyists from working in the White House, a step intended to reduce any influence between the administration and corporations, the ban did not apply to former executives like Mr. Summers, who was not a registered lobbyist. In 2006, he became a managing director of D. E. Shaw, a firm that manages about $30 billion in assets, making it one of the biggest hedge funds in the world.
Note: For many revealing reports on the realities behind the Wall Street bailouts, click here.
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