Clinton Redux
RE Citibank's problems, from the NY Times:
"The bank’s downfall was years in the making and involved many in its hierarchy, particularly Mr. Prince and Robert E. Rubin [italics mine], an influential director and senior adviser.
Citigroup insiders and analysts say that Mr. Prince and Mr. Rubin played pivotal roles in the bank’s current woes, by drafting and blessing a strategy that involved taking greater trading risks to expand its business and reap higher profits. Mr. Prince and Mr. Rubin both declined to comment for this article.
When he was Treasury secretary during the Clinton administration, Mr. Rubin helped loosen Depression-era banking regulations that made the creation of Citigroup possible by allowing banks to expand far beyond their traditional role as lenders and permitting them to profit from a variety of financial activities. During the same period he helped beat back tighter oversight of exotic financial products, a development he had previously said he was helpless to prevent.
And since joining Citigroup in 1999 as a trusted adviser to the bank’s senior executives, Mr. Rubin, who is an economic adviser on the transition team of President-elect Barack Obama, has sat atop a bank that has been roiled by one financial miscue after another."
My comment: So much for blaming it all our financial woes on George Bush and the Republicans; and revelations such as this are why I have deep misgivings about Mr. Clinton, Mrs. Clinton, and the trail of ex-Clintons' advisers streaming in the Obama (whom I voted for) cabinet! (I only hope it is not a case of letting foxes back into the chicken coop?) What ever happened to "Change"?
"The bank’s downfall was years in the making and involved many in its hierarchy, particularly Mr. Prince and Robert E. Rubin [italics mine], an influential director and senior adviser.
Citigroup insiders and analysts say that Mr. Prince and Mr. Rubin played pivotal roles in the bank’s current woes, by drafting and blessing a strategy that involved taking greater trading risks to expand its business and reap higher profits. Mr. Prince and Mr. Rubin both declined to comment for this article.
When he was Treasury secretary during the Clinton administration, Mr. Rubin helped loosen Depression-era banking regulations that made the creation of Citigroup possible by allowing banks to expand far beyond their traditional role as lenders and permitting them to profit from a variety of financial activities. During the same period he helped beat back tighter oversight of exotic financial products, a development he had previously said he was helpless to prevent.
And since joining Citigroup in 1999 as a trusted adviser to the bank’s senior executives, Mr. Rubin, who is an economic adviser on the transition team of President-elect Barack Obama, has sat atop a bank that has been roiled by one financial miscue after another."
My comment: So much for blaming it all our financial woes on George Bush and the Republicans; and revelations such as this are why I have deep misgivings about Mr. Clinton, Mrs. Clinton, and the trail of ex-Clintons' advisers streaming in the Obama (whom I voted for) cabinet! (I only hope it is not a case of letting foxes back into the chicken coop?) What ever happened to "Change"?
posted by Cliff Osmond at 1:37 PM
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