Timothy P. Carney
The Washington Examiner
1/18/2011
If I wrote this in a movie script, the producers would reject it as over the top. The President who said he would stop the revolving door between Wall Street and the executive branch — the President who poses as the scourge of the big bankers — hires Goldman Sachs’ top asset manager to run the agency regulating asset managers:
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Eileen Rominger has been named its Director of Investment Management. She will begin her work at the agency in February.
The Division of Investment Management protects investors and promotes capital formation through oversight and regulation of the nation’s multi-trillion dollar investment management industry. Ms. Rominger comes to the SEC from the asset management industry, where she worked for the past 11 years at Goldman Sachs Asset Management and most recently served as the firm’s global chief investment officer. She previously worked for 18 years at Oppenheimer Capital, where she was a portfolio manager, managing director, and a member of the Executive Committee.
Does Rominger have to take the ethics pledge about which Obama has bragged so much? If so, how does she plan to do her job and abide by this rule?:
I will not for a period of 2 years from the date of my appointment participate in any particular matter involving specific parties that is directly and substantially related to my former employer or former clients, including regulations and contracts.
Aside from dissonance with Obama’s rhetoric and his executive order, is this appointment a bad thing? I think so, but Megan McArdle entertains arguments to the contrary…
The article continues at The Washington Examiner.
H/T Weasel Zippers
