If you play ball with the monied people who want law and regulation structured to ensure that their wealth increases even more, then they reward you with lucrative jobs, like a high paid lobbyist, or, as in the case of Timothy “Eddie Haskell” Geithner, an absurdly lucrative speaking gig:

During his tenure as Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner was constantly dogged by the belief that he was spawned from Wall Street. This thinking was false: If you need a refresher, Geithner had actually spent most of his career in government, and none of it at a bank. When he left office this year, Geithner said that it would be “extremely unlikely” for that to change.

But as it turns out, Geithner is now being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by massive financial organizations. It’s just that he isn’t being paid to work on Wall Street; he’s just being paid to talk every now and then.

The Financial Times reports that Geithner, like countless former public servants before him, has hit the highly lucrative speaking circuit. He’s already made about $400,000 in just three engagements. And that tab is being footed by financial institutions such as Deutsche Bank and Blackstone, which paid him about $200,000 and up to $100,000, respectively.

No one ever explicitly told Geithner that if he protected the banksters, he woud get a payoff, but this is explicit in Washington, DC’s revolving door.

He knew that he would get rewarded, and he has not been disabused of this belief.

H/t Gaius Publius.