NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former U.S. Treasury secretary Robert Rubin said the near-collapse of Citigroup Inc , where he is a senior counselor, was due to the buckling financial system and not his own mistakes, according to an interview published on The Wall Street Journal's website on Friday. Rubin, who is also a director at Citigroup, acknowledged he was involved in a board decision to ramp up risk-taking in 2004 and 2005, according to the paper, and said if executives had executed the plan properly, the bank's losses would have been less. The Journal said Rubin has earned $115 million in pay since 1999, excluding stock options. "I bet there's not a single year where I couldn't have gone somewhere else and made more," said Rubin, according to the Journal. Rubin cited former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan as another example of someone whose reputation has been unfairly damaged by the financial crisis, according to the Journal The paper reported that Rubin said of the current crisis: "what came together was not only a cyclical undervaluing of risk (but also) a housing bubble and triple-A ratings were misguided," he said. "There was virtually nobody who saw that low-probability event as a possibility."
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former U.S. Treasury secretary Robert Rubin said the near-collapse of Citigroup Inc , where he is a senior counselor, was due to the buckling financial system and not his own mistakes, according to an interview published on The Wall Street Journal's website on Friday.
Rubin, who is also a director at Citigroup, acknowledged he was involved in a board decision to ramp up risk-taking in 2004 and 2005, according to the paper, and said if executives had executed the plan properly, the bank's losses would have been less.
The Journal said Rubin has earned $115 million in pay since 1999, excluding stock options.
"I bet there's not a single year where I couldn't have gone somewhere else and made more," said Rubin, according to the Journal.
Rubin cited former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan as another example of someone whose reputation has been unfairly damaged by the financial crisis, according to the Journal
The paper reported that Rubin said of the current crisis: "what came together was not only a cyclical undervaluing of risk (but also) a housing bubble and triple-A ratings were misguided," he said. "There was virtually nobody who saw that low-probability event as a possibility."
"There was virtually nobody who saw that low-probability event as a possibility."
Makes sense if the internet is populated with virtual nobodys... A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
Note how he was brought into Citi to ramp up risk-taking and 1) blames lower executives for poor execution; 2) claims none of this could have been predicted.
And this guy is well-placed among Obama's economic advisors. Cthulhu help us. Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith
By now I think we can with certainty say that they are either idiots, liars or completedly isolated from anything outside their bubbles. And now they are in Obamas government.
Ah, well: A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
