Former Rep. Henry Waxman, who has tangled with industries including Big Tobacco, Big Coal and Big Pharma, thought his congressional experience would position him to help a large law firm advise corporations.

As his retirement from Congress neared, he wrote a business plan, sent it to public-policy group managers and talked to peers who’d preceded him in private practice. A lawyer before he entered Congress 40 years ago, Waxman believed he could “give good counsel to people who have issues that I could help them think through.”

But after more than a month of searching, the fifth most senior Democrat in the U.S. House has changed his mind. K Street, it seems, isn’t for everyone.

Waxman had run up against the contradictions many politicians face when they leave Capitol Hill. He felt comfortable as an advocate, but didn’t want to lobby. He would work hard, but not full-time. He could advise companies, but not be a hired gun to any paying customer.

Few large general-service firms with public policy shops fit this ideal. The firms serve companies across many industries and can be sensitive about offending those clients. And Waxman’s résumé read like a hit list of corporate America.

As a past chairman of the House Oversight Committee and of the Energy and Commerce Committee, he was a force behind passage of the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments, which targeted coal power plant emissions; the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act; and the Affordable Care Act.

Even the Hatch-Waxman Act—which Waxman in his business plan calls the “Waxman-Hatch” Act—cut away power and money from brand pharmaceutical companies. On the other hand, it empowered the generic drug industry.

The Chamber of Commerce gets more specific: Waxman voted in line with business interests only 27 percent of the time during his career. That places him among the 25 least business-friendly House members in office as of 2013, as defined by the Chamber.

Waxman said late last week that he would join his son Michael in  a four-person D.C. public relations company called Waxman Strategies.

Bidding typically is intense for former lawmakers in D.C. lobbying shops, with former senators going for at least $1 million and House members for about $500,000. “It’s a lot of money. That would be the great advantage. But money’s not everything,” Waxman said of the legal industry.

Waxman added: “I’m not changing my views. I’m proud of the work I’ve done and I want to continue working on things I think work well.”

Arash Karami writes: Ayatollah Rafsanjani head of Iran’s Expediency Council, has said that to resolve many of the issues plaguing the Middle East, there needs to be cooperation between the two regional rivals, Iran and Saudi Arabia. When Rafsanjani was asked about Iran-Saudi relations, he said that after statements by Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati about the passing of King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, “The situation became worse.”

Rafsanjani believes that relations with Saudi Arabia can be improved once again, just as they were after the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. Rafsanjani said that after the 1979 revolution, relations with Riyadh deteriorated over Tehran’s desire to export the revolution and the Saudi support for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in the war. However, when he became president in 1989, then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini urged him to improve ties because Riyadh had banned Iranian pilgrims to Mecca, insisting citizens of a Muslim country must be able to go perform a religious duty.

The great Harvard economist Carmen Reinhart wrote a wonderful book with Kenneth Rogoff.  “This Time It’s Differnent.”  Over centuries it hasn’t been. And now it isn’t either.

Remember subprime?

It’s not that it’s back. It never left.

But this time is different.

Remember how low interest rates led investors into buying packaged, securitized boxes with black holes?

It’s not that that’s back. It never left.

But this time is different.

What’s different? Today I’ll tell you…

Shah Gilani notes:The new subprime buildup isn’t about credit-damaged borrowers taking out mortgages. And new securitized boxes aren’t being filled with mortgages.

This time is different because credit-impaired borrowers are buying autos, borrowing on newly minted credit cards and taking out personal, mostly unsecured, loans. This time, institutional investors, mutual funds and retail investors are buying pieces of packaged leveraged loans.

This time is different because the dice are different.

According to a recent report released today – compiled by credit-reporting firm Equifax Inc. for The Wall Street Journal – in the first 11 months of 2014, four out of 10 auto loans, credit cards and personal loans went to subprime borrowers with credit scores of less than 640. That’s 50 million loans for $189 billion, in 11 months.

Subprime lending has helped boost auto sales 59% since 2009. That’s why we’re seeing record auto sales – lenders are throwing record amounts of money at borrowers, especially subprime borrowers.

Like private equity companies and hedge funds and venture capital firms, are able to borrow at next to nothing and put that money out to work in the “free market.” There they look to maximize the yield they get on the loans they make.

These non-bank lenders play in different sandboxes. Some throw money at auto dealers, both new- and used-car shops, so anybody who comes in the door can get a loan, as long as they’re willing to pay sky-high interest rates. Some back lending sites, like LendingTree or Elevate, which help themselves and their backers by lending money at high rates.

In 2014 LendingTree upped the loans it made to borrowers with FICO scores of 500 to 619 by 761% over 2013. None of the loans were mortgages.

Elevate, for its part, lends out at annual interest rates from 36% to a mere 365%.

The New York Federal Reserve said last Tuesday that total household debt rose $306 billion in just the fourth quarter of 2014.

With so much of that debt being carried by subprime borrowers, something’s bound to break.

But not to worry.  Most of the debt that might turn rotten isn’t sitting on banks’ balance sheets. It’s in private hands. Or public hands, depending on which investors are backing private equity shops, hedge funds and VC firms – or, sometimes, as in a lot, the crap gets packaged and sold off to other yield-hungry “investors.”

Banks themselves are packaging some new, old stuff this time around. They’re making “leveraged loans” to companies whose balance sheets are leveraged up with debt already. Borrowers apparently like the leverage to sometimes speculate on their own businesses, maybe buy each other out, maybe pay their controlling masters’ fees, maybe pay dividends, maybe buy back their overpriced shares, maybe just pay off old debt with new debt.

But not to worry.

In other words, don’t worry, this time risks are being spread around, not to just the same people as before, but to new investors who just know this time is different.