Millions of Reasons to Doubt Summers

Dan Froomkin
WashPost

The latest White House Friday-night document dump had its desired effect, as it's Monday morning and there's little to no attention being paid to how stupendously beholden it turns out President Obama's top economic adviser, Larry Summers, is to the financial industry that he is ostensibly trying to rein in.

Summers, it turns out -- according to financial disclosure statements released by the White House late on Friday -- was paid $5.2 million for his part-time work for a massive hedge fund last year. He also raked in more than $2.7 million in fees for speaking engagements at such places as Citigroup, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs. For one speech alone last April, Goldman Sachs paid him a cool $135,000.

All of a sudden, Obama's expressions of outrage over the culture of excessive pay on Wall Street are a bit harder to take at face value.

And the advice Obama is getting from Summers, his economic guru, is looking very suspect.

I mean, come on: How tough are you going to be on someone who paid you $135,000 in one day?

(More here.)