Three years ago Wall Street employees flocked to Washington, attracted by the energising rhetoric of Barack Obama, the call of public service and the sudden dearth of jobs in the financial sector.
In the chaotic first days of the Obama administration, the best qualified were thrown into the Treasury department to deal with the financial crisis. Now many have left, returning to the private sector through the famous “revolving door” that separates prize jobs in government from those in business.
Last week alone, Lazard announced that Ron Bloom, one of its former bankers who later managed the government’s rescue of the US car sector, was returning to the firm as a senior adviser; and it emerged that Goldman Sachs was close to hiring Jake Siewert, a former top aide to Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary.
