HIGHLIGHTS: Jack Lew's Treasury Confirmation Hearing

'I promise to be better than Tiimmaaayy.'

Treasury secretary nominee Jack Lew appeared before the Senate Finance Committee for his confirmation hearing on Wednesday.

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New Details Revealed In SEC Report

UPDATE - Jack Lew Oversaw 113 Cayman Island Investment Funds

Jack Lew, who has been nominated as the next treasury secretary, oversaw up to as many as a hundred Cayman Island investments when he worked at Citi Bank as chief operating officer of the alternative investment services unit, SEC disclosures reveal.

It has previously been reported that Lew himself had only been invested in a fund that was based in the Cayman Islands.

The number of Citi subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands, which fell under the jurisdiction Lew was in charge of, was 113. In the 2012 presidential campaign, the Obama campaign called Mitt Romney's own Cayman Island investments "bets against America."  But only months after the election ended, Obama nominated his former chief of staff Jack Lew, who himself had similar investments and even oversaw investment funds there, to be the next treasury secretary. 

When asked this morning at a Capitol Hill hearing about his investment in the Cayman Islands-based fund, Lew plead ignorance.  He claimed today that he "actually didn’t know" the fund he invested in was housed in the Cayman Islands.  Besides, he said, my "benefit was really very small."

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Highlights:

Lew asked about Citigroup bonus.

UPDATE - Jack Lew Oversaw 113 Cayman Island Investment Funds

Full Hearing Recap From Marketwatch

Comments

[DailyBail]

Treasury Gets a Citibanker

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324734904578243932620870510.html

[SKINFLINT]

Lew had no idea that his investment vehicle at Citigroup was domiciled in the Cayman Islands. He wants to run the US Treasury. What a knucklehead.

[DailyBail]

Lew’s explanation was Romneyesque. “I was an employee in the private sector compensated in a manner consistent with other people who did the kind of work that I did in the industry,” he said, justifying his payout. As for his offshore investment: “I reported all income that I earned. I paid all taxes due.”

Lew’s best defense on the Caymans matter was that he lost money on the investment, so there were no taxes to be avoided. But this only proves that he wasn’t necessarily good at selecting tax havens. And his plum job at Citigroup, which Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said has been called “a political trophy position,” is a fine example of the revolving door between government work and private-sector lucre.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-senators-turn-the-tables-on-caymans-investor-jack-lew/2013/02/13/d01cac80-7631-11e2-95e4-6148e45d7adb_story.html?hpid=z4hen

[DailyBail]

‘Robin Hood’ photobombs Jack Lew during Senate hearing

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/robin-hood-photobombs-jack-lew-during-senate-hearing-170855865--politics.html

[DailyBail]

U.S. Treasury secretary nominee Jack Lew says the U.S. must avoid the automatic spending cuts scheduled to take effect next month, saying they would impose “self-inflicted wounds” on economic expansion.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-12/lew-tells-senate-u-s-must-avoid-self-inflicted-sequester-wounds.html

[Josie]

Are we surprised by any of this stuff? Why not have Joe Cassano be our under sec of treasury? Or Madoff can fill in from prison? The keys to our bank were given over to the den of thieves years ago. The Sheeple checked out to watch Survivor and the Super Bowl...

[DailyBail]

Josie

I'm curious why this information didn't come out until yesterday, and who leaked it. Lew will still get confirmed but this is a pretty big deal. Lew could be accused of withholding relevant information from the committee.

[SKINFLINT]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftgAG3Vnif8

Get Smart had a criminal named the Claw. Totally hilarious. It would be great if Jack Lew had that same sort of speech characteristic.

Congress: Could you state your name for the record please?

Lew: My name is Jack Rew.

Congress: Jack Rew?

Lew: Not Rew. REW.

Congress: Right, Rew. So could you tell us of your investments in the offshore banks at the Cayman Islands.

Lew: Awlight. As you know I lurked fawl Citi and had no idea that some of these investments worr rocated in the Cayman Irands.

Congress: You said irands, you meant to say islands.

Lew: Light, irands.

[SKINFLINT]

DB Didn't know if you had the chance to check OUT Banzai today. Totally hit out of the park.

[DailyBail]

Skin

I saw it. And some of the pics he posted in comments were even better. I'll be posting some of them later.

[DailyBail]

Our legal sources say that venture-capital funds like Mr. Lew's will often use a Caymans vehicle so that any non-U.S. investments will more easily avoid being characterized as "controlled foreign corporations" (CFCs). If a venture fund owns more than 50% of a CFC, then U.S. investors might have to report as income some of the CFC's income, even if it hadn't been distributed to the fund or its investors.

Speaking of income, Senators may also want to ask about the last paycheck Mr. Lew received from Citigroup. On January 15, 2009, after Citi had received taxpayer bailouts of $45 billion in cash, and hundreds of billions more in loans and guarantees, Mr. Lew received a payment of $944,518. As he was about to join the Obama Administration, he received this sum for "salary, payout for vested restricted stock, discretionary cash compensation for work performed in 2008," according to a disclosure report he signed in 2010.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323696404578298352191611608.html

[SKINFLINT]

Is this Lewd story another of those when good people do nothing bad things happen stories. I reallyy haven't read anything that would seem to indicate some sort of resistance to his nomination.

[SKINFLINT]

Awful.http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-02-14/bush-was-total-disaster-obama-worse