Hillary Hires Wall St. Critic to Oversee Her Campaign's Finances

Michael LaRosa @MichaelLaRosaDC
EXCLUSIVE: Hillary Clinton Said to Hire Former Wall Street Cop as Campaign CFO http://bloom.bg/1yxCPkS via @bpolitics


Hillary Clinton is planning to name Gary Gensler, a former top federal financial regulator and strong advocate for strict Wall Street rules, as the chief financial officer of her campaign, according to a Democrat familiar with the decision.

Gensler, in his role as chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, was a leading player in the drafting and then implementation of the Dodd-Frank Act, the financial rules that President Barack Obama signed into law in 2010 in the wake of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Gensler also served in President Bill Clinton's Treasury Department.

For Clinton, who has been fighting her left flank’s concern that she is too cozy with Wall Street, Gensler is a notable hire. He became known as someone with sharp elbows —even during his negotiations within the Obama administration—in his push for tighter regulation...

Though a former partner at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Gensler became a champion for strict new Wall Street regulation and was viewed by financial reform advocates as one of their top allies throughout his time as chairman of the CFTC. In his role at the agency, Gensler pushed hard for rules transforming one of the most lucrative parts of Wall Street before the crisis: derivatives, the products investor Warren Buffett famously labeled "financial weapons of mass destruction.’’ In frequent speeches, public and private meetings at the agency and testimony to Congress, he used his nearly five-year tenure in the job to seek dozens of rules reining in Wall Street’s control of the $700 trillion market .

Wall Street bristled at Gensler’s efforts. Banks, hedge funds and other companies visited the agency thousands of times pushing changes to the regulations. When they didn’t get what they want, the industry’s top lobbying groups then sued the agency multiple times.


read: http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-04-16/exclusive-hillary-clinton-said-to-hire-former-wall-street-cop-as-campaign-cfo

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Gary Gensler took center stage in the efforts to reform the country’s systems in the wake of the financial crisis. He assumed control of a low-profile, almost obscure CFTC, and as its chair, soon spearheaded the regulatory and supervisory movement to rein in the disruptive risks that could emerge from the hitherto mostly unregulated derivatives and swap markets that traded in trillions of dollars. The landmark Dodd-Frank Act, so loathed by big Wall Street players, owes much to Gensler’s stewardship and relentless lobbying in Washington for its passage.

Gary Gensler will be remembered for his emphasis on removing the derivatives and swap markets from the stranglehold of the large financial institutions and banks, and their closed-club opacity. Instead he ushered in transparency and easier access.

“Just start with Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations where he wrote about the benefits of lowering the price of information and the price of access. In essence, if you make information free, the economy benefits. Similarly, if access to the market is free, everybody gets to compete,” he said in an address to Harvard University.

Described variously as a polarizing regulator, Wall Street’s arch enemy, or its bête-noire, he once said, “No longer will a hedge fund with a P.O. Box in the Cayman Islands for its legal address be able to skirt the important reforms Congress put in place.”

read more: http://www.valuewalk.com/2014/01/gary-gensler-wall-streets-arch-enemy-departs-cftc/