After retiring at age 39 from Goldman Sachs, the derivatives-mad firm that has profited nicely from the government’s multiple financial bailouts, Gensler came to the Clinton Treasury Department. There he worked on CFMA, the bill that allowed the derivatives market to metastasize into a hotbed of financial risk with an estimated value — before last fall’s financial crash — exceeding the world’s real financial holdings.
Gensler remained close to Wall Street players even after leaving the public sphere in 2000. He is a longtime investor in New Mountain Capital, a private buyout firm that paid him $70,000 last year in exchange for service on its advisory board. New Mountain, whose chief executive officer, Steven Klinsky, co-hosted a $28,500-per-head fundraiser for John McCain last year, even placed Gensler on the board of Strayer Education after taking it over eight years ago.
Gensler also defended himself from charges of complicity in the conscious deregulation of financial markets during the twilight of the Clinton era. “I believe that both our financial system and our regulatory structure failed the American people,” the repentant nominee wrote, adding that he was advised to recuse himself during the 1998 tussle over derivatives that pushed Brooksley Born from her chairmanship of the CFTC.
http://prospect.org/article/whats-problem-gary-gensler