Thursday, October 18, 2012

Pawlenty's Faustian Bargain

Former Minnestota Governor Tim Pawlenty is resigning his post as national co-chair of Romney's presidential campaign to assume the leadership role of the Financial Services Roundtable, the K-Street lobbying arm of the nation's financial services sector which counts a membershio of one hundred integrated financial services companies that provide banking, insurance and investment services.
The move likely ends Tim Pawlenty's public office career. Pawlenty, who ran briefly ran for the GOP nomination before bowing out after a poor performance in the Ames Straw Poll, has agreed not to serve in the Cabinet should Romney prevail November 6th. But even longer term, it is difficult to see how Tim Pawlenty could sell himself to the American public after this Faustian bargain with the lobbying arm of American capital that comes with a reported $1.8 million salary. For starters, banks are seen in negative light and reckless risk takers while the word lobbyist is itself a pejorative.
Still, Pawlenty sees it differently. According to The Hill, Pawlenty said representing "Wall Street is another way for him to help the middle class and people who are struggling to find work."
"If you ask what are those things that you can do to make it more likely that jobs are going to grow, the answer is we need more businesses starting and growing," he said. “These financial institutions are the fuel that goes into that engine."
It should be noted that Tim Pawlenty has never worked in the financial services industry nor in the Federal government, making it clear once again that success in America is evermore predicated on who you know more than what you know.
We congratulate him on his new position and his seven figure salary but we would urge him to rethink his view that Wall Street's interests are somehow aligned with Main Street's and I say this as a former Goldman Sachs professional. If I learned anything during my decade on Wall Street, it is that the investment banking sector has become a glorified casino gambling with other people's money where once it was focused on the long-term investments that helped to build this countrty with its own capital.



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