This man's path is not atypical. FDA employees go over to industry, Congressmen and presidents go to law firms, and eventually most Fed employees at the top go private and make millions. Heck, if you're in Congress, you don't even have to leave to make that money.
We need less government, we need term limits, we need solid non-compete clauses for anyone that goes into government, and we need it now.
This is just one more straw on the camel's back. Sooner or later, someone's going to make a fortune selling pitch forks and torches to the serfs and vassals in our increasingly feudalistic society. .
There is a reason the SEC specifically excluded telephone records from the records it maintains. Most federal agencies keep those records and make them available to the public via the Freedom of Information Act. The SEC is an outlier; they don't keep these records for this exact reason. So there's never a trace of the friendly phone calls between these current/former/future Wall St. millionaires. Mary Jo White made them from the other side of the fence, and Rob Khuzami is no different. See also Dick Walker, Linda Thomsen, Jim Burns, Robert Kaplan, etc etc etc...
The comments make this article interesting. I have read of many moves from Gov't service to private sector that outraged me. This is not one. I believe having a man like this helping firms NOT break the law, is more likely than the opposite.
Many on Wall St. need to go to jail. I believe this man might actually help. Getting rich is a by-product.
ZeroHedge - as always - is on top of this farce of a story: "The name Robert Khuzami …former top SEC enforcer… is perhaps best known not for what he did (judging by how many Wall Street bank executives ended up in jail following the Great Financial Crisis, very little), but for what he didn't do - namely pursue any action against his former employer, Deutsche Bank, where he was a general counsel and where under his watch Greg Lippmann was "shorting your house." The reason, among others, extensive deferred comp linked to DB stock as we reported all the way back in May 2010. But Bob didn't care about what he did, or didn't do at the SEC - he was much more interested in what he would do after he left the regulator, which he did in January of this year. Because Bob, courtesy of his DB days, realized the massive paycheck potential of a revolving door job at the head of the government's enforcement unit. Sure enough, as the NYT reports, he has capitalized on just that following a $5 million a year contract (with a 2 year guarantee) with legal behemoth Kirkland & Ellis where he will be a partner and "will represent some of the same corporations that the S.E.C. oversees." This is yet another "reason why the SEC will never truly prosecute those responsible for Wall Street's criminal ways: after all who will dare to bite the hand that might one day feed them?"
The pillaging will continue until morale improves…
It is impossible for America to survive if this kind of activity continues. Our financial companies and the 1% might survive for a while longer but the country will self destruct. All life is designed to help its species to grow and thrive. When a small portion of the species starts to consume the remainder the species dies out or kills its hosts and then dies. We will either self destruct or make the planet uninhabitable buy humans. Money was create as a way to help all humans grow, not just a few. America needs to develop laws to protect everyone, not just Corporations and greedy individuals. The rights of the community (everyone) must be of higher value than an individuals right to use money to control the community.
Since financial reward seems to fuel this anathema, wouldn't it be a wise investment for our government to pay regulators and government officials a salary commensurate with what they would earn in the private sector? I know it sounds cynical, however, it would be peanuts compared to the cost and influence the current system places on our society.
This is disgusting, putting new meaning to word turncoat. We can scream about prosecuting a guy like Snowden, but this man here is certainly passing on more secrets to the enemies of the people, our freedom and democracy i.e the banks and that will have a more damaging effect for more folks than some occasional terrorist attacks will ever do.
Yesterday I read about the multi billion dollar aluminum scam by our Wall Street banksters and today why they get away with it. Decades ago mafia bosses were prosecuted and not so long ago Enron scamsters went to prison. Lets face it, their crimes were penny ante compared to what goes on now. In our great country, when a starving man steals a slice of pizza he gets locked up in prison. When practically everyone in the world is required to donate $20 for every tank of gas to our Wall Street speculators its perfectly ok. The scams invented by Enron are spreading to all commodities like aluminum, then copper and who knows what is next. Our banks are too big to fail, so we tax payers bail them out. They are also too powerful to prosecute because they own the best lawyers.
In the office of the new SEC Sheriff of Wall Street October 2014:
* Ring, ring. * Khuzami: Hi John, Bob Khuzami here. How are things going in the office since I left? * Sheriff: Great Bob, good to hear from you again. What are you doing with all those chips you cashed in? * Khuzami: Finally got my head above water, John. The wife is spending like there's no tomorrow, ha ha, and the kids think money grows on trees but we're getting by. * Sheriff: That's great Bob, we all hope that our day will come someday too, so what can I do for you? * Khuzami: John, one of my clients is having a problem with one of your auditors who obviously doesn't understand how the system works. There is nothing there so I thought you and I could get together for lunch and we could resolve this without making a big issue out of it. * Sheriff: Sure Bob, anything to help out an old friend and a fellow veteran of the Washington wars. What does your schedule look like on Wednesday?
Think back to 2008. Did any of these guys say it was wrong to raid the U.S. Treasury and spread the proceeds like pixie dust over Wall Street. A few years earlier, we had the real estate bubble, which was more like a government train robbery. Anyone with a horse could rob the government train.The control of government by Wall Street is now complete and total. So you have the 1% running the government and the rest of us hoping that things won't get worse. Bush or Obama - it does not matter. They do not want to understand Wall Street because it gives them a headache. It would be interesting to have a president that has the capacity and desire to understand Wall Street. Hopefully, that president would not leave office and take a $5 million job on Wall Street.
Why the vitriol for one of the very, very few on Wall Street who actually worked (& earned) his way to the top? No Ivy legacy, no "dad made a few calls", no frat brother getting him in the door. Just a guy who chose public service TWICE when his innate talent could have led to 30 uninterrupted years of raking it in.
I admire his back story, and I feel no vitriol for the person. However, there is something quite immoral about Mr. Khuzami being able to go over "to the other side" with all of the state secrets and able to do whatever he damned well pleases with them.
He wasn't a particularly effect head of enforcement either. How many heads of major investment banks did you roll during is tenure? You can't alienate your future prospective employers.
Further evidence that what we need is more Washington regulators that can cozy up with already entrenched crony capitalist during their tenure and then use their good will and tax funded training and experience to seek their personal fortunes.
I note the concern expressed in this article over the revolving door was absent in the article from two weeks ago describing Hillary Clinton's profitable speaking tour.
(Since we will be paying Hillary a fat pension and since her ability to garner those speaking fees is the direct result of the positon the taxpayers bestowed on her, shouldn't those speaking fees go right into the national treasury)
For those of you perplexed by that fact that some of us are suspicious of the motives of our government bureaucrats, perhaps you now have some insight.
You have made a false comparison. Hillary Clinton was not a regulator. Maybe your comparison would have some merit if she took employment as a paid spokesperson for some entity foreign or domestic that dealt with the government. Should we ban all former politicians and government employees from speaking tours? Should companies that train people in special skills forever have an interest in their activities after retirement? Perhaps it is just the possibility of Hillary Clinton winning the next Presidential elections that really concerns you.
This revolving door leads directly to weak oversight, degradation, and the corruption of whatever could have been 'fair and balanced' in a capitalist system. There ought to be a mandatory waiting period before someone can take up with the 'other' side, if not an outright ban on this kind of movement. What a pity this is sanctioned.
It's really insulting to victims of the HUAC to use that quote for this. Godwin's law should be extended to it . It seldom adds any insight to a discussion.
It's really insulting to victims of the HUAC to use that quote for this. Godwin's law should be extended to it . It seldom adds any insight to a discussion.
He is not working for criminals now; he's working for a law firm that represents accused white collar offenders. A lawyer represents, period. One side is no less deserving of a good lawyer in our adversarial system.
To those who complain life is hard in a capitalist system: Get a helmut!
You are correct. However, most people in spite of the rights of the accused to access to legal counsel do not think much of lawyers that work for 'the mob.' Attorneys for 'the mob' are considered as being in their pocket. It is lawyers of this ilk that besmirch the profession of providing legal services especially in a litigious society such as exists in the United States.
Articles like this are based on a pervasive misunderstanding of what lawyers do for a living. They represent clients with different and often opposing interests every day. That is not a conflict; that is the job. Do people who complain about Khuzami going to Kirkland also complain about a doctor treating a bad guy with a police gunshot wound and, 10 minutes later, the bad guy's victim? What a conflict!
Your argument would have more merit if public defenders were compensated at the level as lawyers at Mr. Khuzamis' firm. An emergency room doctor's compensation could well be the same regardless of the victim being treated. The obligation of an attorney to his present client is separate from an attorney's choice of the type of client he or she chooses to normally represent. There are many lawyers representing many clients with conflicting interests everyday, but it is usually the same lawyers representing the same types of clients.
This is, sadly, not really news, any more than the sun rising.
The real question for America is how long will the general population allow this? Hugely powerful, with virtually endless money and thus influence in our society, our banks and other powerful industries simply buy those who can further their empires.
Anyone who chooses to look deeply, knows it is just business as usual.
The movie, Inside Job, gives the average person a good insight into this. The very same thing happened in Iceland. The banks bought up anyone who was talented and put them on their payrolls. Of course, Iceland eventually took corrective measures.
When will the US? Yes, both the United States and us (the people).
Till the cries and pressures are great enough, the existing paradigm will continue to rule. Rule quite literally I am afraid.
As long as our legislators are elected saying 'I promise to clean up ...' and then take a few steps sideways when they get a heady whiff of the power they wield or of what their career might be once they are booted out of office there will be no change. It's an inside job by elected officials that often don't think about the good of the country (e.g., what is not happening on Capitol Hill today) but the good of their pocketbook.
American society is built, in part, on ambition and the desire to better one's lot in life. Athletes do it (in fact, I was just reading an article about A-Rod), so why not lawyers?
It is often claimed that people who work for the federal government are lazy and overpaid. If that is the case, then people who make such claims should welcome Mr. Khuzami's departure from the public payroll. It is more likely, however, that anyone who has brains and works for the federal government can make a whole lot more money on the outside, and leaving for a big payday is the American way. We get what we pay for.
Given the abuses from Wall St after the real estate meltdown, he cannot have much time enforcing, or he is very incompetent. I suppose that today we know more about these abuses than in the past. As Thomas Gray would write "ignorance is bliss".
The revolving door between government regulatory officials and the industries they regulate spans from local government to the state legislatures and of course to the feds. The combination of insider knowledge, subject matter expertise, networking and old fashioned graft appears to be the only true bi-partisan cause of elected officials.
Neither Congress nor State Legislatures will ever pass laws to end the conflict of interest inherent in such cases as that of Mr. Khuzami. Nor will they ever pass laws to limit term limits. Nor will they pass laws to clarify that corporations are not people.
This system will not change. It will not change because it works for the people who have built it, who profit from it, and probably believe in it. It is flourishing just as much under President Obama as it did under President Bush II. It will flourish just as much under the next administration no matter who is elected.
There is no appetite in this country for the only process which might (key word) result in change. We need amendments to the US Constitution to structurally remove these threats to the integrity of our system of government. We need a Constitutional Convention to update our protections from government corruption and to safeguard our rights under a federal system of democracy.
Right now, we have a parody of what our founders believed would constitute a people's government.
Seems like practically everyone is fed up with the plutocracy who have and make way, way too much money, as we all know, while the bottom, say, 40% are completely stressed and middle 40% live in fear. Question is what to do about it. I believe ECONOMIC JUSTICE will be the next great social movement in this country and around the world. YES, redistribute the wealth away from the top 3% (worldwide) to the commonweal (universal healthcare, living wages everywhere, decent housing for all and education plus real environmental stewardship and a transition to a new economic paradigm financed by the excess wealth of the 3% (this would probably be around 3 trillion dollars- should be enough. The plutocrats need to see the error of their ways- WE ALL nned to organize and legislate around the idea of economic justice...for starters.
It's ludicrous to read the justification this guy Khuzami provides for his $5 Million revolving-door job at Kirkland: "Every lawyer needs experience serving both sides".!
Using this self-serving logic, why not also let FBI agents and police officers gain "broader experience" by occasionally serving as criminals...?
With such twisted logic, no wonder most Americans do not hold lawyers in high esteem..!
Good for him, he earned it. This guy spent many years in government and did some serious cleaning up of bad guys during his stint at the SEC. His isn't a revolving door story. We wish him well.
I agree. If we want to have smart, driven, effective people like this work for our government, we have two choices: give them a competitive salary for working for the government (and in this case that means $5 million a year) or give them a career path that lets them benefit indirectly, after the fact, from their public service. We have collectively chosen the second alternative. The first is impractical and the third - pay them what they get paid with no possibility of moving to private practice - would be a disaster. If we did that (which is what the commenters posting here and expressing immense indignation implicitly suggest), the Khuzamis of the world will never work for the SEC. If you don't like the SEC's effectiveness now, think of how it would be if the only people who worked there were truly those who couldn't find employment elsewhere.
Real “banes” do not get 7 figure deals, they get blacklisted. What’s really going on and who cares anymore? The reptilian forces that brought us the GR in 2006 are in full swing even though the GR is not close to over.
I never took Marxist explanations of our world very seriously and felt they were too crass explanations of what was happening around us. No more! The world seems to have become predictably crass in the Marxist sense.
thank you mr khuzami for once again proving my point that what was formerly a noble way to spend your career -- as a public servant -- has morphed into a way to ensure future riches. you work the system for a few years (and a few high profile cases along the way will only enhance your future worth) and then take that knowledge and experience to undermine that very system.
and i'm sure those about to be laid off lawyers will appreciate the sacrifice they are making to ensure mr. khuzami's most generous pay package....
bynyc... uh. no. the point is the ethos has changed -- now public service seems to be morphing into a stepping stone to unimaginable wealth -- and the additional benefit of how to game the system.
Eagle; you don't get it. its not all about attracting the best and brightest. After all, if that's what we desire then we may as well get rid of public service, altogether. Obviously that's just as much a fantasy as your assessment.
On the other hand, it also is about the corruption or appearance thereof; when the same person who was the regulator, now switches sides and defense the very same regulated (without any process of intermediation or regulation). It is this, I think, that is the dominant issue.
Evidently this issues is not black or white, as you seem to imply.
That said, there clearly is an issue (if only perception of it) that this revolving door practice serves particular interests -- and this, I think , undermines regulatory regimes, per se.
So lets not be cynic and leave it at; "how else are we to attract the best and brightest"
.... By the way; are these the best and brightest you would want as civil servant regulator?
I worked on Wall Street for many years before leaving a few years ago. and I've been reading about these high-profile revolving door hires so long, it's just like a ....revolving door! Today it's Khuzami, last time Fitzgerald, the time before Shargel (didn't he represent some mob guys?), etc. "High Profile" lawyers are "rainmakers": they bring in big biz, they command big comp; it's always been all about the Benjamins. Tell me something new. The idea that any of this will change anytime in this century is pure left-wing fantasy.
It's curious and instructive that this article says Khuzami took a record number of "actions" at the SEC during his tenure there. NOT prosecutions, let alone convictions, but "actions"? What, is this like re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic? Matt Taibbi @ Rolling Stone spent years scrupulously documenting serial white-collar crimes by Wall Street firms and the Federal Reserve Bank. Where were/are the SEC investigations? Where are the "perp walks"? Where are the trials, the Congressional hearings, the media? Zilch. When was the last time the president said one word about this in public? Congress is a fetid swamp, the president a wimpy, lame-duck placeholder, and the SEC an impotent running joke, notwithstanding Mary Jo White's reputation. Good luck with all that.
The fortunes of Khuzami or guys like him are a blip on the radar of The Rigged System; compared to guys like Bob Rubin or Steve Schwartzman or Steve Cohen, he's a clerk.
uhhh, the SEC can't "prosecute" someone. Prosecution is for criminal proceedings. The SEC can't proving a criminal action, they bring civil "actions". Got that?
As for the revolving door, 1) you're jealous and 2) civil service is not and should not be a lifetime commitment. Amazing that you probably complain about politicians who never leave office and demand term limits, yet here, you can't understand why a public servant would go into the private sector.
This is the shame of our regulatory system. Go hard enough on Wall Street to make headlines, but not hard enough to jeopardize future career prospects. When the next financial crisis comes, please don't ask yourself why. It's all right here.
It is? Assuming public service isn't a lifetime obligation, what should he do for a living if he wants to leave the government? Should he get a job at McDonalds?
A more accurate headline for this story would have been "Corruption Pays Off," followed through with similar language in the text. Forever, the SEC has reached "settlements" with its corporate targets rather than convictions and imprisonment of individuals. As Elizabeth Warren has famously noted, we throw the book at millions of poor individuals all the time, but the SEC doesn't seem to be able to throw a single bank CEO in jail. There is a whole agency of Khuzasmis still at the SEC. Elliot Ness never went to work for Al Capone...and didn't come to his government job from the mafia.
Don't understand why reporters & editors are so afraid of the word 'corruption.' Just because the highest levels of the legal profession are so rigorously and self-righteously deaf, dumb and blind to serial conflicts of interest such as Khuzami's, must the reporting be so perennially euphemistic?
When we see this happen in other countries we call it Crony Capitilism.
When we see this happen in the good ol USA we call it "business as usual" The great freedoms that Capitilism brings.
And of course we are all secure in the knowledge that American Apparatchiks and Politicians would never let their future prospects of high paying jobs in the very industries they regulate affect their decisions.
Sadly, the salaries of the $8mi lawyers, the $150mi retirement plans of retiring CEO's are all funded in the end by the consumers who are struggling. The imbalance in earnings between the 1% and the 99% is going to destroy our economy because of a lack of consumer demand.Yet congress seems to think these wealthy rent seekers who add no value to our economy are somehow considered "job creators" and their wealth will somehow "trickle down". Some billionaires have a lower tax rate then their secretaries, yet Congress pushes to lower their taxes further to help them amass an even a larger % of the wealth of our nation.When 6 heirs of the Walmart fortune control as much wealth as 30% of the population, something is wrong, When a wealthy East Coast family sends their private jet to Calif, to pick up special cookies for their daughter's birthday party while a single unemployed mother struggles to feed her children, something is wrong. When Congress refuses to pass a food stamp bill threatening the nutrition of millions, yet passes a pork filled farm bill benefiting millionaires in the agribusiness, something is wrong. When legislators get high salaries, travel 1st class, have cadillac health insurance, have extremely generous retirement benefits and even enjoy free haircuts, then try to cut social SS/medicare/food stamp benefits and refer to them as "entitlements", something is wrong. Sooner or later the disenfranchised, preyed upon 99% of this country will get tired of eating cake.
Who can afford cake these days? . Khuzami is another reminder that in this country there's a lot of wiggle room between unethical and illegal. This is as American as "Mock Apple Pie," a popular dessert during the original Great Depression of the 1930s, made with Ritz Crackers instead of apples.
I already did something different. I'm 56, and I choose my profession because I cared about the environment. Still in that field, and I will never make more than $100,000. How about yourself?
Talk about living wages for working families and you are a socialist. Employees of some of our largest employers qualify for food stamps and Medicaid. Large law firms can afford to pay 5 million to buy influence (lets be honest here). All the while we are watching the glorification of ignorance on reality television.
You said it. Honey Boo Boo is a hero to many and that is the game, of "I'm better than you", what a shame, my Mom is rolling in her grave to think of the ignorance that is rampant in this country.
With corprations treated as individuals and corporate individuals not being held accountable for their actions, this trend will continue as long as the government continues to be run by corporate greed, paid lobbyists, endless filibustering and corrupt leaders.
Let's tally up the score: Wall Street 110, Main Street 0.
5 million dollars yr to turn around and stick it to the consumer. I am so completely fed up with the plutocracy of this country.
Every day as a FP I care for our poorest citizens--I am their life line. In addition to medical care I help with their housing problems, finding enough food for them to eat (some haven't eaten fresh produce, fish or meat for months), talking patients out of suicide. Trying to find them insurance coverage for their cancer or chronic diseases. Interceding on their part to find blood pressure medications or diabetes drugs at discounted rates.
They all have 10-15 year old cars. They have no idea what they will do if that car quits working or a major appliance goes out of commission.
I now make around $10/ hour. I used to have a nest egg...but it is gone along with my husband who died in 2009, plus our house--couldn't keep up payments on a small $80,000 home. So I rent a room with a small kitchenette.
Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan are making billions of dollars moving ingots of aluminum from one warehouse to another.
Kirkland calls obtaining such lawyers as trophy finds. In addition to a former SEC lawyer, Mr. Khuzmai, they have snagged a top criminal defense lawyer too. How blatant is that!
I just can't find the energy to keep getting up each day and continue working into my late 60s when I watch the gap between 8 million dollar lawyers and my patient population's wages grow so obscenely disparate each day.
We need less government, we need term limits, we need solid non-compete clauses for anyone that goes into government, and we need it now.
I have read of many moves from Gov't service to private sector that outraged me. This is not one. I believe having a man like this helping firms NOT break the law, is more likely than the opposite.
Many on Wall St. need to go to jail.
I believe this man might actually help. Getting rich is a by-product.
This is yet another "reason why the SEC will never truly prosecute those responsible for Wall Street's criminal ways: after all who will dare to bite the hand that might one day feed them?"
The pillaging will continue until morale improves…
I know it sounds cynical, however, it would be peanuts compared to the cost and influence the current system places on our society.
In our great country, when a starving man steals a slice of pizza he gets locked up in prison. When practically everyone in the world is required to donate $20 for every tank of gas to our Wall Street speculators its perfectly ok. The scams invented by Enron are spreading to all commodities like aluminum, then copper and who knows what is next. Our banks are too big to fail, so we tax payers bail them out. They are also too powerful to prosecute because they own the best lawyers.
* Ring, ring.
* Khuzami: Hi John, Bob Khuzami here. How are things going in the office since I left?
* Sheriff: Great Bob, good to hear from you again. What are you doing with all those chips you cashed in?
* Khuzami: Finally got my head above water, John. The wife is spending like there's no tomorrow, ha ha, and the kids think money grows on trees but we're getting by.
* Sheriff: That's great Bob, we all hope that our day will come someday too, so what can I do for you?
* Khuzami: John, one of my clients is having a problem with one of your auditors who obviously doesn't understand how the system works. There is nothing there so I thought you and I could get together for lunch and we could resolve this without making a big issue out of it.
* Sheriff: Sure Bob, anything to help out an old friend and a fellow veteran of the Washington wars. What does your schedule look like on Wednesday?
A few years earlier, we had the real estate bubble, which was more like a government train robbery. Anyone with a horse could rob the government train.The control of government by Wall Street is now
complete and total.
So you have the 1% running the government and the rest of us hoping that things won't get worse.
Bush or Obama - it does not matter. They do not want to understand Wall Street because it gives them a headache. It would be interesting to have a president that has the capacity and desire to understand Wall Street. Hopefully, that president would not leave office and take a $5 million job on Wall Street.
I note the concern expressed in this article over the revolving door was absent in the article from two weeks ago describing Hillary Clinton's profitable speaking tour.
(Since we will be paying Hillary a fat pension and since her ability to garner those speaking fees is the direct result of the positon the taxpayers bestowed on her, shouldn't those speaking fees go right into the national treasury)
For those of you perplexed by that fact that some of us are suspicious of the motives of our government bureaucrats, perhaps you now have some insight.
Perhaps it is just the possibility of Hillary Clinton winning the next Presidential elections that really concerns you.
To those who complain life is hard in a capitalist system: Get a helmut!
An emergency room doctor's compensation could well be the same regardless of the victim being treated.
The obligation of an attorney to his present client is separate from an attorney's choice of the type of client he or she chooses to normally represent. There are many lawyers representing many clients with conflicting interests everyday, but it is usually the same lawyers representing the same types of clients.
DV: No Luke, I am your father.
Luke: Kewl!! Dollar, dollar, holla, holla!
Who knows how high his take will go,
Guarded the public weal
With honor and zeal,
But just can't resist all that dough!
The real question for America is how long will the general population allow this? Hugely powerful, with virtually endless money and thus influence in our society, our banks and other powerful industries simply buy those who can further their empires.
Anyone who chooses to look deeply, knows it is just business as usual.
The movie, Inside Job, gives the average person a good insight into this. The very same thing happened in Iceland. The banks bought up anyone who was talented and put them on their payrolls. Of course, Iceland eventually took corrective measures.
When will the US? Yes, both the United States and us (the people).
Till the cries and pressures are great enough, the existing paradigm will continue to rule. Rule quite literally I am afraid.
It is often claimed that people who work for the federal government are lazy and overpaid. If that is the case, then people who make such claims should welcome Mr. Khuzami's departure from the public payroll. It is more likely, however, that anyone who has brains and works for the federal government can make a whole lot more money on the outside, and leaving for a big payday is the American way. We get what we pay for.
Neither Congress nor State Legislatures will ever pass laws to end the conflict of interest inherent in such cases as that of Mr. Khuzami. Nor will they ever pass laws to limit term limits. Nor will they pass laws to clarify that corporations are not people.
This system will not change. It will not change because it works for the people who have built it, who profit from it, and probably believe in it. It is flourishing just as much under President Obama as it did under President Bush II. It will flourish just as much under the next administration no matter who is elected.
There is no appetite in this country for the only process which might (key word) result in change. We need amendments to the US Constitution to structurally remove these threats to the integrity of our system of government. We need a Constitutional Convention to update our protections from government corruption and to safeguard our rights under a federal system of democracy.
Right now, we have a parody of what our founders believed would constitute a people's government.
Using this self-serving logic, why not also let FBI agents and police officers gain "broader experience" by occasionally serving as criminals...?
With such twisted logic, no wonder most Americans do not hold lawyers in high esteem..!
No more! The world seems to have become predictably crass in the Marxist sense.
and i'm sure those about to be laid off lawyers will appreciate the sacrifice they are making to ensure mr. khuzami's most generous pay package....
On the other hand, it also is about the corruption or appearance thereof; when the same person who was the regulator, now switches sides and defense the very same regulated (without any process of intermediation or regulation). It is this, I think, that is the dominant issue.
Evidently this issues is not black or white, as you seem to imply.
That said, there clearly is an issue (if only perception of it) that this revolving door practice serves particular interests -- and this, I think , undermines regulatory regimes, per se.
So lets not be cynic and leave it at; "how else are we to attract the best and brightest"
.... By the way; are these the best and brightest you would want as civil servant regulator?
It's curious and instructive that this article says Khuzami took a record number of "actions" at the SEC during his tenure there. NOT prosecutions, let alone convictions, but "actions"? What, is this like re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic? Matt Taibbi @ Rolling Stone spent years scrupulously documenting serial white-collar crimes by Wall Street firms and the Federal Reserve Bank. Where were/are the SEC investigations? Where are the "perp walks"? Where are the trials, the Congressional hearings, the media? Zilch. When was the last time the president said one word about this in public? Congress is a fetid swamp, the president a wimpy, lame-duck placeholder, and the SEC an impotent running joke, notwithstanding Mary Jo White's reputation. Good luck with all that.
The fortunes of Khuzami or guys like him are a blip on the radar of The Rigged System; compared to guys like Bob Rubin or Steve Schwartzman or Steve Cohen, he's a clerk.
As for the revolving door, 1) you're jealous and 2) civil service is not and should not be a lifetime commitment. Amazing that you probably complain about politicians who never leave office and demand term limits, yet here, you can't understand why a public servant would go into the private sector.
Reducing this to jealousy is just plain puerile, not to mention disingenuous.
Disgusting from a public policy standpoint, and dishonorable for Khuzami and his new employer.
When we see this happen in the good ol USA we call it "business as usual" The great freedoms that Capitilism brings.
And of course we are all secure in the knowledge that American Apparatchiks and Politicians would never let their future prospects of high paying jobs in the very industries they regulate affect their decisions.
All the while we are watching the glorification of ignorance on reality television.
With corprations treated as individuals and corporate individuals not being held accountable for their actions, this trend will continue as long as the government continues to be run by corporate greed, paid lobbyists, endless filibustering and corrupt leaders.
Let's tally up the score: Wall Street 110, Main Street 0.
Every day as a FP I care for our poorest citizens--I am their life line. In addition to medical care I help with their housing problems, finding enough food for them to eat (some haven't eaten fresh produce, fish or meat for months), talking patients out of suicide. Trying to find them insurance coverage for their cancer or chronic diseases. Interceding on their part to find blood pressure medications or diabetes drugs at discounted rates.
They all have 10-15 year old cars. They have no idea what they will do if that car quits working or a major appliance goes out of commission.
I now make around $10/ hour. I used to have a nest egg...but it is gone along with my husband who died in 2009, plus our house--couldn't keep up payments on a small $80,000 home. So I rent a room with a small kitchenette.
Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan are making billions of dollars moving ingots of aluminum from one warehouse to another.
Kirkland calls obtaining such lawyers as trophy finds. In addition to a former SEC lawyer, Mr. Khuzmai, they have snagged a top criminal defense lawyer too. How blatant is that!
I just can't find the energy to keep getting up each day and continue working into my late 60s when I watch the gap between 8 million dollar lawyers and my patient population's wages grow so obscenely disparate each day.
That smirk on Mr. Khuzami....