quid pro quo, clarice

Revolving Door: From Top Futures Regulator to Top Futures Lobbyist

Among people who follow these markets for a living, the Lukken hire had an embarrassingly over-the-top quality, like a CEO who goes the appearances-be-damned route and puts his 23 year-old secretary/mistress on the board of directors.

Mike Masters is head of the Masters Capital Management hedge fund and also chairman of Better Markets, a new non-profit advocacy group that promotes the public interest in the labyrinthine vagaries of the financial markets, and especially the commodities markets. He describes the hiring of Lukken as an extreme example of revolving-door politics.

“It’s not the revolving door. It’s the express elevator,” he says.

Taibbi is spot-on as always in pointing out the flaws in the system.

There is no way our government regulators will ever function as they are supposed to as long as their main goal is to angle for a cushy private sector job as a reward.