The News: What Wall Street and Banking's Top Lobbyists Earn

Here's another career option: Washington lobbyist for Wall Street.

Top lobbyists for banking and other business groups rake in big bucks, the National Journal reports. In 2008, American Bankers Association CEO Ed Yingling made $2.29 million, Financial Services Roundtable president and CEO Steve Bartlett made $1.63 million and SIFMA CEO Timothy Ryan made $2.02 million.

The numbers come from National Journal's latest salary survey among Washington's major trade organizations, think tanks, and other interest groups. Perhaps not surpisingly, the highest-paid association executive of all came from a finance group: Marc Lackritz, the now-retired head of SIFMA, received an exit pay package that boosted his total compensation to $6.76 million in 2008. Other top earners include Business Roundtable President John Castellani at $5.57 million.

National Journal observes:

Headhunters say that pay levels at industry groups reflect trends in the corporate world. The CEOs and other industry representatives who sit on the boards that determine the salaries of trade association executives are high earners, and they expect to pay their Washington leader a handsome sum as well, even when economic times are as hard as they were in 2009.

The Envy List [National Journal]

Silicon Valley Gears Up for Acquisitions as Economy Improves [Bloomberg News]

Music to the ears of tech bankers, and a possible harbinger of new hiring in the sector.

JPMorgan's Crisis Lead Appears To Have Vanished [Reuters]

Treasury's Citi Sale: TARP's Last Hurrah? [Fortune]

What If Women Ran Wall Street [New York Magazine]

Street Fight [The New Republic]

Obama has the momentum to win the battle with Wall Street over financial reform.

Life After the City: Why I Left Merrill Lynch For the VIP Treatment [Wealth Bulletin]

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