Thursday, November 6, 2008

Rahm Emanuel Learned a Bad Lesson on Wall Street


The problem with people who make their fortunes too easily, via inheritance, or political payoffs, is they think everyone who is rich made their money that way. Thus I'm quite unhappy that Rahm Emanuel is the new Chief of Staff, because as a lifelong partisan, he was paid off by after working as a senior adviser for Clinton, going to work for big Clinton supporter Bruce Wasserstein at Dresdner Klienwort Wasserstein. I guess he knew a lot about finance, because he made $18MM in just over two years there. He also had a board seat at Freddie Mac, a job that requires showing up, and he got a couple hundred grand for that in 2001.

It's simple patronage and access, and I presume that strongly colors how he perceives wealth is created.

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