Monday, November 18, 2013

The regulators who produce nothing are getting very wealthy. A bad sign for our future


WASHINGTON • So much money to be had if you know where to look.
The avalanche of cash that made Washington rich in the last decade has transformed the culture of a once staid capital and created a new wave of well-heeled insiders.
The winners in the new Washington are not just the former senators, party consiglieri and four-star generals who have always profited from their connections. Now they are also the former bureaucrats, accountants and staff officers for whom unimagined riches are suddenly possible. They are the entrepreneurs attracted to the capital by its aura of prosperity and its super-educated workforce. They are the lawyers, lobbyists and executives who work for companies that barely had a presence in Washington before the boom.
During the past decade, the region added 21,000 households in the nation's top 1 percent. No other metro area came close.
Two forces triggered the boom.

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