As the Door Turns: The System is not “Broken”; it was “Fixed” at and From its Beginnings

from David Ruccio

We can now add former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to the long list of those who have walked through the revolving door between Wall Street and the White House, which makesNoam Scheiber just a bit worried.

Let’s be clear what’s going on here: Geithner’s choice of post-government career isn’t shameful—there are plenty of upstanding, well-intentioned people who work in finance. And it’s obviously perfectly legal. What it is, to be blunt, is corrosive. There are any number of organizations that could benefit from Geithner’s managerial talents and A-list Rolodex. If you didn’t know how the world worked, you’d have no reason to assume that a large, profitable financial firm had a special claim on these assets.

But, of course, we all do know how the world works. It’s hard to come up with a senior economic official who didn’t cash out in the financial sector shortly after leaving government. Every time another one does, it every-so-slightly reinforces our conviction that the game really is rigged. Geithner, with his unusually prominent role and his pretensions to lifelong service, has reinforced that conviction a bit more than most.

To which the best response is in the comments:

Oh, grow up.  Of course the game is rigged.  You just figuring that out now?