President Obama’s Treasury Secretary nominee not only worked for the Citigroup hedge fund that shorted the housing market, invested in off-shore tax havens, and took a nice bonus from TARP money – he had a provision written into his employment contract that encouraged him to return to government service.

If we don’t get the Robert Rubins of the world again playing crazy games at government insured banks, is it necessary to spend a lot of time worrying about the $7.3 trillion in insured deposits? (Wait, I forgot Robert Rubin is still a highly respected person in DC policy circles, maybe we should be worried.)

Tim Geithner’s first post-Treasury Secretary job will be as a “distinguished fellow” at the Council On Foreign Relations. For the uninitiated, the Council On Foreign Relations is a more or less open conspiracy to use the American government as a vessel for advancing Big Business’ interests abroad. CFR represents America’s commercial oligarchy in all its glory. And as the power has shifted within the American business community to finance capital so too has CFR come to be dominated by Wall Street’s agenda and personnel.

After a global financial crisis, an epic price fixing scandal, and embarrassing criminal conduct British regulators are considering ending Too Big To Fail Banking. British Finance Minister George Osborne has proposed legislation that if banks do not shield their riskier investment activities from day to day banking they will face restructuring.

The White House absolutely wants the Treasury Secretary to be deeply involved with budget issues. But we know this because they’ve already designated current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in the lead negotiating role on the fiscal slope. So while Lew may have the resume, Geithner already has the job, and he has indicated he will not step down until the negotiation gets resolved somehow.

Thomas Edsall devoted his blogpost today to several economists who claim that the upward redistribution we have seen over the last three decades is a result of revolutions in technology and that it will be difficult to reverse this development. In fact much of this economic analysis is quite sloppy, and it is easy to show that many of the factors leading to upward redistribution had nothing to do with technology.

One of the bigger issues with the lack of Democratic consensus as the fiscal cliff nears is that it gives oxygen to a group of right-leaning fiscal scolds who see the opportunity to decimate safety net programs, allegedly in exchange for some tiny giveback on taxes they will describe as balanced. You can see this with the renewed prominence of Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, who claim to be working with a bipartisan group of lawmakers.

The arrogance of power comes through loud and clear here. Larry Summers and Robert Rubin did their business, and they will never admit to being wrong.

An introduction to the theory of oligarchy in practice today.

Ron Suskind’s new book is getting some attention for the gossipy tidbits it uncovers, like this one.