Meet the new boss?

[j_b]

Robert Rubin Returns

 

by Eamons Javers

 

Former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin - who watched his reputation as an economic titan shattered after leaving the Clinton White House - is decidedly out of favor in the nation's capital.

 

Except one place - the Obama administration.

 

Behind the scenes, Rubin still wields enormous influence in Barack Obama's Washington, chatting regularly with a legion of former employees who dominate the ranks of the young administration's policy team. He speaks regularly to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who once worked for Rubin at Treasury.

 

According to Geithner's public calendar, the Treasury Secretary spoke or met with Rubin at least four times in the first six months of Geithner's tenure. Three of those chats, including an hour-long session in Rubin's New York office, came before President Obama released his Wall Street regulatory reform proposal in June of 2009.

 

Rubin's is a discreet kind of influence, though, because the veteran Wall Street hand is still dealing with the fallout from his post-White House career. He took a job at Citigroup, where the bank's collapse was averted only by the injection of $45 billion in taxpayer bailout cash.

 

[..]

 

The long list of Rubin acolytes working for Obama includes National Economic Council Director Larry Summers, Geithner counselor Gene Sperling, Budget Director Peter Orszag, deputy assistant to the president Michael Froman (who worked with Rubin at Treasury and at Citigroup), National Economic Council official Jason Furman, Deputy National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, and Gary Gensler, the head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Summers and many of the other officials also get regular phone calls from Rubin.

 

Also, many of the basic assumptions underlying Obama's approach to the economy can be traced to Rubin's ideas about the way capitalism should work, say former colleagues.

 

Although Obama's team faces very different economic circumstances than Rubin did at Treasury, "the basic philosophy of free market liberalism is still there," said Alice Rivlin, who worked with Rubin when she ran Bill Clinton's Office of Management and Budget.

 

"If I were running things again, I would certainly want to know what Bob Rubin thought," Rivlin said. "I wouldn't necessarily do it, but I'd want to know what he thought."

 

Rubin's critics say they see his fingerprints on proposals in Obama's regulatory reform proposal. Obama would force derivatives trades onto a public exchange -- but still leave Wall Street free to keep "non-standard" trades hidden from public view. And critics complain that the administration's resistance to calls to break up the too-big-to-fail banks is classic Rubin. Rubin declined to comment.

 

Rubin's tattered reputation is a far cry from where it stood a decade ago, when Rubin, then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and then-Deputy Treasury Secretary Larry Summers appeared in an iconic image on the cover of Time magazine after the successful bailout of the Mexican economy under the headline "The Committee to Save the World."

 

Greenspan testified Wednesday before the crisis committee, saying he was right 70 percent of the time during his 21 years in public service. That's a humbling admission from the man once lauded in a book by Bob Woodward called "Maestro."

 

Rubin's record, too, has been tarnished to the point that it raised eyebrows inside the Obama administration when CFTC chief Gary Gensler invoked Rubin's name in a recent interview. "What's so marvelous about Bob," Gensler told the New York Times in March, was that "he fostered in people the ability to think. He wanted to hear differing ideas."

 

That's not something many others will say out loud. Gensler "was one of the few people willing to go on the record saying he likes Bob Rubin," said the senior administration official. "But privately, there's still a huge amount of respect for Rubin's thinking."

 

The mere mention of Rubin's name invokes cringes on the political left - where "Rubinomics" is derided as an approach that coddles Wall Street at the expense of Main Street.

 

"This is the guy whose policies basically allowed Wall Street to play Russian Roulette with our future, and now millions of Americans are out of work as a result," said Daniel Pedrotty, director of the AFL-CIO's office of investment. "He took his money and fled the scene of the crime."

 

[..]

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/04/08-0

[j_b]

Vice President Biden Lends His Prestige To Robert Rubin's Relaunch

 

by Dan Froomkin

 

Robert Rubin, the ultimate symbol of the Democratic Party's coziness with Wall Street fat cats, has kept a relatively low profile in Washington ever since the financial world he helped remake exploded in late 2008.

 

As Treasury Secretary in the Clinton administration, Rubin was a key proponent of the extreme financial deregulation that eventually brought the economy to its knees; after leaving government, he proceeded to enrich himself to the tune of $126 million while driving Citigroup to the edge of bankruptcy.

 

But Rubin is leaping back into the Washington policy-making scene next week, with a splashy relaunch of his pet think-tank, the Hamilton Project, housed at the Brookings Institution. As founder of the project, he will deliver the opening remarks and speak on one of the two panels

 

And the Democratic Party, rather than keep Rubin at an extreme distance, is apparently welcoming him back with open arms. The event's keynote speaker is none other than Vice President Joe Biden.

 

Rubin, even in exile, has continued to be an influential behind-the-scenes player, speaking regularly to proteges (many of them alums of the Hamilton Project) who occupy top economic-policy positions in the Obama administration -- they include Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, White House budget chief Peter Orszag, and key White House advisers Jason Furman and Michael Froman, just for starters.

 

And the Rubinites, amazingly enough, are riding high these days. They feel like they saved the financial world -- at what they consider a relatively low cost. The millions of lost jobs and homes are considered unfortunate collateral damage.

 

[..]

 

More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/13/vice-president-biden-lend_n_535283.html

[billcoe]

...all this hatin' on our President.........it's cause he's BLACK!

[rob]

and he's not even an american citizen

[billcoe]

....and a Muslim!

[prole]

...and a Communist!

[rob]

Wait, I thought he was a fascist.

[j_b]

that's because he is a soshalist, and fascists are soshalists too.

[prole]

He's the Antichrist, according to 24% of 'Mericans.

[rob]

[Nitrox]

...all this hatin' on our President.........it's cause he's BLACK!

 

[olyclimber]

At least he's not a black GW!

 

 

http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0412/medvedev-bush-not-thinker/