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Stop Robert Rubin Before He Kills Again
Robert Rubin is poisoning Washington again.
The former Treasury Secretary who presided over the nearly-fatal deregulation of the financial industry -- then made $126 million nearly killing Citigroup -- had been keeping an appropriately low profile in the nation's capital ever since everything he wrought went pear-shaped.
But now he's back, and once again trying to influence public policy.
On Friday he made his third major (and apology-free) Washington appearance in two weeks, delivering opening remarks at a conference that his pet think tank, the Hamilton Project, co-sponsored with the liberal Center for American Progress.
But the last thing Washington needs right now is another infusion of Rubinomics -- by which I mean the combination of deregulatory zeal, deficit obsession, free tradeism and general coziness with fat-cat Wall Street bankers that Rubin epitomizes.
It's long been troubling that so many of Obama's top economic advisers are former Rubin proteges, but the return and rehabilitation of the man himself is particularly unwelcome right now. Mild signs of recovery aside, we remain very much in the midst of an unemployment crisis that is devastating American families and that requires active, urgent government intervention -- not hand-wringing about the federal budget deficit. Financial regulation, to be effective, needs to limit what Rubin and his friends want to be able to do.
The Rubin effect could be felt at Friday's event, which was ostensibly about "The Future of American Jobs," but which -- with a few notable exceptions -- lacked a sense of urgency about the current unemployment crisis, focusing instead on long-terms "structural problems."
Asked by feisty moderator Chrystia Freeland of Reuters to explain why, if our capital markets are the best in the world, job creation is so weak, panelist and Berkeley economics professor Alan Auerbach instead launched into a disquisition on tax policy and the need to reduce corporate income taxes.
The centerpiece of Friday's event, a new report by MIT economist David Autor, did a commendable job of relating the polarization of job opportunities and contraction of the middle class to the feeble state of the America's public education system, but it glossed over the key role played by rapacious financial titans.
Panelist Ron Blackwell, chief economist for the AFL-CIO, was almost alone in giving more than lip service to the current jobs crisis. Blackwell said he had never seen a labor market "in worse condition than exists at present." He pointed out that the U.S. is an outlier country -- "No other country is experiencing anything like this," he said. He decried the way "globalization and financialization" has "changed the balance of power between workers and employers." And generally speaking, he made no bones about the government's essential role in both creating and fixing America's unique economic problems.
What's needed, he said, is nothing less than a "sustained public-investment led recovery that rebuilds the capacity of the American economy."
His cause was not taken up by his fellow speakers, however -- including Larry Summers, President Obama's chief economic adviser, and one of the event's two headliners (along with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.)
Summers began his remarks with an acknowledgment of the terrible trauma being caused by high unemployment. Then he pivoted.
"This is a profoundly important problem for our society, but it's the task of economists to analyze it in a more bloodless way."
And bloodless he was. For the next several years, he said, "What I think is safe to say is that even on optimistic assumptions, there is going to be substantial unused capacity in this economy," measured by, among other things, the unemployment rate.
Asked when that high unemployment would abate, he explained that it would depend upon "the pace of the economic recovery in terms of GDP" [Gross Domestic Product] and whether the formula that economists have historically used to predict job growth based on GDP would continue to be skewed by unusually high productivity. "Make your judgment about the GDP forecast over the next several years. Take your guess about whether the formula is going to snap back, or continue to be off, and you can form a view about the unemployment rate," he suggested.
"Maybe things will restore to normal," he said -- in which case job growth would actually outpace GDP. "That would be my guess, though not one I would hold confidently."
Summers did endorse some new government measures to spur job growth. "I don't see how anyone can look at the wholesale destruction of construction jobs [and] the state of our infrastructure in many spheres and not think that something ought to be done to increase the extent of our national effort around public investment," he said.
But asked if the country needs another stimulus, he replied: "I don't think framing the question in terms of a 'stimulus' is very helpful." He said he favored continuing unemployment insurance, new funding for local governments and investments in energy efficiency -- three major progressive goals.
But beyond that, he said: "Is this the moment for some major new experiment in Keynesian pump-priming? Absolutely no."
Rubin's public rehabilitation tour started last week, with a Hamilton Project event devoted to the principal that "it is vital that we begin to confront the challenges that pose a greater risk to our long-run prosperity than the Great Recession."
Vice President Joe Biden was the keynoter at that event, but, in a turnabout, used the occasion to challenge the Wall-Street friendly Democrats Rubin had assembled to join President Obama in making sure that this economic recovery, unlike the last one, actually benefits the middle class.
Rubin's second major appearance was on Wednesday, at a gala "Fiscal Summit" organized by fellow deficit hawk (and fellow Wall Street mogul) Peter Peterson. (The two men even joked onstage about their relative net worths.) That was a lovefest -- and a deeply disturbing one at that.
Although Biden didn't play along, Rubin has some highly placed enablers in his rehabilitation. The deficit summit's keynoter, former President Bill Clinton, had warm words for Rubin. "He's taken a few licks lately, like all of us have," Clinton said. But "I think he's the finest Treasury Secretary since Alexander Hamilton, and I still believe that."
At Friday's event, I asked Center for American Progress head John Podesta, who is close to the Obama White House, if he was concerned about enabling Rubin. He responded: "I think he has a track record, much of which is successful, some of which is not successful."
At last week's event, I asked Rubin about his role in deregulating derivatives -- one of the critical steps in the series of events that led to the country's financial meltdown. He replied that he had always favored regulating them. I wrote that even were this the case, his claim to fame remains that he killed the one serious attempt to regulate them.
Jumping to his defense Friday afternoon in Newsweek was Jacob Weisberg, the Washington Post Co. executive who co-authored Rubin's 2003 autobiography (talk about intimate relationships between journalists and their sources). Weisberg insists that Rubin supported regulation, but was just powerless to do so given the opposition from Wall Street and other members of the Clinton administration. Similarly, Weisberg argues, despite multiple reports to the contrary, that Rubin wasn't involved in the decisions that led to Citigroup needing a massive federal bailout to survive.
Is anything disqualifying from public life these days? Given the chance to weigh in, the voters evidently think so -- consider the parable of soon-to-be-former Sen. Chris Dodd.
In Washington public policy circles, however, the answer is apparently not -- certainly not if you're rich and well connected.
But as Rubin's literally disastrous track record so clearly suggests, Washington would be better off shorting Rubinomics than investing in it.
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52 Comments so far
Show All"Weisberg insists that Rubin supported regulation, but was just powerless to do so given the opposition from Wall Street and other members of the Clinton administration."
Hmmm. That could easily be taken to imply that Wall Street was/is a member of the administration, but surely that can't be so. Can it?
In any case, the utter helplessness of well-intentioned U.S. legislators and regulators in the face of corporate opposition is truly amazing at times. As in the case of all those self-proclaimed supporters of universal health care "if only it were politically possible", it's enough to make one question the value of electing a "representative" government in the first place -- especially when they seem to have no problem starting wars in spite of massive public opposition.
I guess some opponents are more equal than others, notwithstanding SCOTUS insistence on the "equalivalent protection" of corporate and individual "free speech."
It sure feels like our government Of, For and By the People has perished.
"Hmmm. That could easily be taken to imply that Wall Street was/is a member of the administration, but surely that can't be so. Can it?"
–A rhetorical question that all but answers itself with panache.
A mordancy as cold as the graves where Robert Rubin's (and Obama's) now and future victims lie.
It amazing how the true Obomber believers keep drinking the cool aid.
SUPPORT THE EMPIRE SEND YOUR NEIGHBOURS KIDS
And they will continue to support him no matter what he does. They like the idea of Obama so much that they are willing to ignore the reality.
Brand Obama is a powerful brand indeed!
Rubin is a selfish, foolish idiot who is useful to the rich. He is NOT an economist of any knowledge, and certainly doesn't give a flying rat's ass about the PEOPLE of this country. Remember US? The CITIZENS? Once they started calling us "consumers", citizenry meant nothing. We are just "useless eaters" to them.
When 75% of fortune 500 companies pay NOTHING to this country in taxes, I think it's NOT time to lower them. These companies make tens of BILLIONS a quarter, and they pay NOTHING. You and I make next to nothing and WE pay 35%. Hell, the ultra rich pay 18% for sitting by the pool waiting for the check to show up. Their secretaries pay 35% for WORKING. We penalize those who work and reward those who don't.
Why the hell does ANYONE listen to this MORON? It's pretty damned obvious to LOTS of us that it's Reagan's Alzheimer's economic "system" that has decimated this country, and this asshole is one of it's leading proponents. That alone should give him a lifetime membership in the jailed for life crowd. But I guess destroying the entire economy of the country is fine, but robbing a 7-11 to feed your kids is what gets you jail time.
How much DISASTER does it take for the people of this country to stop worshiping the asshole who started us down this ride to hell? Reagan is still loved by millions of idiots, and Rubin is still being listened to like he HAS A CLUE! This scum bag should be in jail for the rest of his miserable life. At the very least, he should be forced into a soup kitchen feeding those who live by HIS policies for at least the 15 years a 7-11 robber would surely get.
Why do "conservatives" have to go around destroying EVERYTHING they touch? There's NO CONSERVATION involved in ANYTHING they do. May they rot in hell for TWO eternities. ALL OF THEM!
"Once they started calling us "consumers", citizenry meant nothing." -- WJM
I agree with you, and I have written about this issue, too. I hate being referred to as a consumer. I am a citizen.
Robert Rubin, from the beginning, has been advising the Obama administration. Only now, is his position official.
I also agree that Robert Rubin should be in jail, along with countless other Wall Street CEOs and executives who have committed fraud and bet against us -- We the People.
"I am a citizen." (Kay Johnson)
Certainly it gives one little surcease that Robert Rubin and his mendacious ilk have not been incarcerated or better yet even, executed. Instead, the system, endlessly profligate, rewards them ad infinitum– placing them in positions of even greater power where they can effect more extravagent carnage and with complete impunity.
Yet one should pause to examine what one means when they say "I am a citizen." (Kay Johnson)
This assumes a world and a country which no longer exists. Citizenry is a relationship that has been abrogated, if not effaced to the point of meaningless absurdity. The paradigm of citizenry in America is little more than a wishful conceit of hope and bad faith that has been rendered operationally null. What remains are imaginary remnants of a ghostly dream, almost quaint in their innocence.
This laughable concept now exists more as a dead, feudal detritus in the carcass of American Democracy. Clinging to the belief in the agency of American citizenship only obscures the emergence of a truly engaged political vision from coming to fruition. It is best to see things in cold light, abandoning illusions and then, proceed accordingly. Declaiming presumptuously "I am a citizen." sounds almost atavistic, if not somehow pathetic. American Democracy is spent; it is a mausoleum, a charnel house. True citizenry is a fiction, an impossibility.
"Father," he asked, "are the rich people stronger than anyone else on earth?" 'Yes, Illusha," I said. "There are no people on Earth stronger than the rich." "Father he said, "I will get rich, I will become an officer and conquer everybody, the Tsar will reward me, I will come back here then no one will dare..." Then he was silent and his lips still kept trembling. "Father, he said, "what a horrid town this is."
–(Dostoyevsky, "The Brothers Karamazov.")
"Is history simply a matter of events that leave behind those things that can be weighed and measured – new institutions, new maps, new rulers, new winners and losers – or is it also the result of moments that seem to leave nothing behind, nothing but the mystery of spectral connections between people long separated by place and time, but somehow speaking the same language?"
–(Greil Marcus, "Lipstick Traces, The Secret History of the Twentieth Century" (1989).
Sioux Rose
VASHKAR: Great post, always eloquent in a manner so reminiscent of the much missed Jill Bains... I would like to say on behalf of Kay, who is a person of genuine integrity, that I believe her use of the word citizen is reflective of the way Ralph Nader defines it. After all, Nader's organization was named, "Public Citizen," and it invites members of this foolishly misled land to understand (and educate themselves to) the dynamics behind the policies of their time. Kay is an avid reader and certainly does her part to earn the title of "public citizen." Knowledge calls for action, and she, like others of us here in this forum, have been on our share of marches. These are treated as quaint annoyances by the ruling elite. After all they're busy these days arrogating to themselves liberties like the right to torture, to spy on citizens, to seize their assets through elaborate relief programs dressed up as "reforms," and where necessary, disappear the truly inconvenient ones. Protests are like swatting flies to them.
Profound quotes, Vashkar. Thank you for posting them; and by the way, I caught that incredible compliment on the long thread 2 days ago. We, in North Florida, are now in the season of fireflies and it's nearly time to sneak (the gates close around 8) into the forest. There it is a magical privilege to participate in the electric annual reunion as MILLIONS of living sparkles, beings that exist to give off light, conduct their ecstatic electrical dances for just 2-3 weeks a year. It's quite an experience to get inside of... surrounded by so many of these little marvels. I'll send you a sparkle from the forest!
Sioux Rose,
This is a re-worked posting we wrote in response to one of your pieces that we feel you might have missed. If you did read it I apologize for the redundancy.
I am posting from Jill Bains' old computer. Please understand I was not mocking or deriding Kay Johnson's personal integrity or the decency of her politics, but trying to make a larger point. Your kindness to her is typical of your compassion and I would like to share in it.
Jill Bains and I are colleagues: political, occupational and familial. We are close friends, having met in college and subsequently bound by both family and our continuing, parallel educations. My wife, Kim, is Jill's cousin. I'm pleased you have noted the similarities, in both style and content between us. Now having absorbed her materials, I see myself writing and sounding too much like her, almost like an alter ego. We've read the same books and been influenced similarly. The larger ideological canopy under which we post is one I feel is common to many who are not Americans. The nativist American scaffolding–the underlying assumptions and references–simply do not exist for us.
Our 'Weltanschauung' (world view) is all but totally divergent from the consciousness of even the most well meaning in your country. We attribute this to the tragic isolation and hidebound political myopia afflicting Americans: The curse of an inimical, ossified Liberalism; a complete unfamiliarity and deliberate divestment (both intellectual and emotive) from the more radical analysis that non-Americans take for granted. This defaults to an institutional loyalty that is almost impossible to jettison– inclusive too, of all the Nader/Green off shoots: They, finally, are too American to matter.
Coupled with the incomprehensible wretchedness that constitutes education in America, all but assures an obdurate inability and failure to see things as they actually are. Here, it must be said, that I am not speaking only about the virulent right wing who are clearly, beyond the pale. The real problem, from our observations, is the ostensibly liberal and even the highly educated progressive classes with roots in the burnt offerings of the now throughly unmasked Democratic party.
That (Americans) for the most part, reference themselves only through themselves; that they succor a toxic cocoon, a hive whorl of inviolable solipsism, projecting only lethality and morbidity; that the privilege of being American disables in advance the necessary more radical critique from ever coalescing. That much is obvious. To many, who are its real victim– those who live in the blood spoor of Pax Americana– the luxury of indulging perpetual ignorance is not an option. That the solution to the 'problem' of America will not come from within America, but exterior to it– and be International in scope.
When Jill Bains (Amfortas Wound) moved back to her home in Laos she left the written remnants from her tenure on this site neatly archived. We had a chance to read through all her material. As we mentioned previously, regarding the wonderful poster 'Obedient Servant,' Jill had allocated a special 'folder' to the both of you–among others– in the material she saved. All your work is there.
In retrospect, we too, as did Jill, admire and look forward to your special, inimitable and forward looking postings. Please keep up your most unique engagement. When we have time to peruse this site we always look for your 'handle.'
Jill is doing well and pregnant with her second child.
All the best, Sioux Rose!
Avoid, as best you can, the wheeling vultures, now circling overhead. For they have begun their descent.
–Vashkar and Kim.
Sioux Rose
VASHKAR: Thank you for another eloquent post, and I appreciate your elaborating on a number of themes. Having been drawn to the spiritual realm since childhood, I was taught that awakened souls have a responsibility and obligation to wake up their fellow citizens. During the l970's (when I graduated college), and the l980's, I had great exposure in media. I taught school conventionally, but wrote mystical columns that appeared in a wide array of magazines and newspapers, both in the Caribbean and the U.S. By the mid-1990's, I found EVERY conceivable media door close to me. At first I just thought it was a personal lesson, and it wasn't until I began to compare notes with other writers and activists that I began to realize a pattern was fast emerging.
Our media has essentially been bought out, our schools are under the fascist program of "No Child Left Behind," and our domestic "security" structure is prepared to target those who rock the boat.
In previous dark ages, the mystics had to go underground. It was believed that retaining The Teachings was more important than risking death by being gunned down in radical uprisings. That's pretty much the conundrum I face IF I stay in the U.S. Tragically, its economic model has been adapted by other lands and they, too, push to surveil their citizens, purchase hideous weapon systems (often in lieu of feeding and housing their own citizens), and invest in Wall St's latest fiscal weapon of mass destruction, that non-entity known as the derivative.
As you know I subscribe to the belief that time flows in thematic cycles, and we are now in that part of the "wave" that churns up the past (as it curls under in reverse motion) in an effort to gather forceful forward momentum. Thus much progress (in the way of civil liberties, environmental laws) painfully won seems to be eroding before our eyes.
Pluto, the Shiva-Vishnu planet that tears down in order to rebuild, is now in the early portion of Capricorn. If I were to choose a sign that signified fascism, or any totalitarian top-down, hierarchical, patriarchal model, it would be Capricorn. (That doesn't mean all Capricorns subscribe to this, Phil Donahue and Lewis Lapham are two who have transcended their sign and seem more fitting to the next stellar mansion of the great time dial, Aquarius. Conversely, an Aquarian like Ronald Reagan and currently the incredibly retrograde behavior of the Aquarian--as per its original charter--state of Arizona are acting like paranoid Capricorns.) When Pluto crossed Sagittarius, the sign of religion, we saw the growth of religious movements. Pluto can mean death OR rebirth. So many fundamentalists began to identify with DYING to prove their religion's primacy. Sagittarius also refers to wealth and since so much derives from the natural world, it relates to the state of those resources. The deadly side of Pluto took aim at nature as so much has been decimated in the past 2 decades, the loss of species spellbinding.
Eventually Pluto's passage through Capricorn will expose the beast of the corporate world, a 21st century return to the ancient pharaohs. Like the slaves of Egypt, the masses will finally tear these entities down and apart. The fruit of such effots may not be realized until Pluto enters Aquarius (first visit there in 248 years) in 2024, or hopefully, as a result of the convergence of the two planets of law and order (Saturn and Jupiter) as they meet in Aquarius at the end of 2020 (when I believe new GLOBAL charters will be drawn up that render into law many of the ideals that progressives champion) that the DEATH of corporations will be witnessed in our midst.
In the next 10 years, many efforts will be made to divest these deadly behemoths of their ungodly powers. Some critical efforts in that direction should arise this year in August. There are so many variables in the cosmic equation; however, the astrologer gets a good outline from the positions of the outer planets and the battle between the satanic power of corporations (Saturn) versus the rights of the people (Aquarius/Uranus) is already underway. I'd love to say it'll all be tied up with ribbons, the bloody efforts behind us in a year of so. Truth is, I see a 10-14 year span here... and with the levels of environmental destruction already underway, added to a monetary system based on false artifacts of worth, added to Michael Klare's predictions as per the "end of oil," what numbers survive this next decade are yet to be determined. I believe the soul to be eternal, and that all good works become part of each individual's immortal legacy.
Thank you for such warm kudos... it empowers me to work harder to get the universal messages "out there." I am heading for Peru in June to spend 10 days with shaman. This is a pilgrimage I've wanted to take for 4 years, and now with savings in the bank making a measely 1%, I figure I'll invest in this adventure. Knowledge and its pursuits are my passion; so if I learn things that can benefit others, I will be happy to share them in this forum.
Please send Jill my regards. And blessings for the child to come! What courage to bring souls into this world now. One of my daughters owns that courage, too.
I am sick of all of these scumbags too. What do they actually contribute to sustainable human life-support to deserve the obscene amounts of money they make? Nothing as far as I am concerned. They are just high-stakes gamblers gambling with our money, our lives and our country. F*** em!
Rubin no doubt made some mistakes, as everyone else in that or any other administration has. However, to blame him for the deficit is incorrect. In Clinton`s first year he started with a budget deficit of many billions and improved it every year until his last year in office it was a surplus of billions. Rubin evidently did not do everything wrong during the time he was in. Bush, on the other hand, took the surplus and turned it back into record levels of deficits. There were many people that were responsible for our present disaster through several administrations. The philosophy of greed, which Reagan encouraged, was also responsible for the rich taking over the country, which we are witnessing today.
It's clear from this article that the "average person" has no standing whatsoever in the halls of Congress!
This article makes it clear that the government exists only for the wealthy, enacts legislation that continually favors them, and the "commoners" who are "unfortunately out of work" be damned!!!!
Half the people in the Administration should be out looking for work instead of continuing their "remaking of America in their own image!" It makes me sick!!!
Before we can stop Robert Rubin, we need to stop the Clinton/Obama lovers who still foolishly believe that Robert Rubin helped Bill Clinton save the economy. It is just too much to bear when we have to put up with even our best friends or our closest family members saying "Obama is correcting Bush's mess so be nice. Whatever Obama gives, take it !". Does anyone remember the foolish gambling on the stock market in the 1990s? It's about to happen again and even if I tell them the lessons of last time, they say "Oh, but that was different. This time, it will work out and you'll be rich. Now be a good boy and invest in Exxon and Mcdonalds. You'll get penalized for paying off your car loan too early !" Some people never ever learn and Rubin is counting on that as he laughs at the gullible people !
Ranjit___I agree with you on paying off your car debt and don`t forget the credit cards, possibly speed up payments on the house. However, you do not favor owning stocks, so what do you propose, bank accounts at 1 or 2% interest or bonds that will lose value when rates rise? After eight years of Bush ruination, it is a little soon to blame Obama for one year in office. Could anyone have done any better with the country in a wreck and still throwing billions on military mistakes? Of course he has made mistakes (who hasn`t), but he at least admits it. Remember Bush, who could not remember one mistake that he had made when asked? Obama did not have 9-11 to play to the max and get everyone waving the flag for the Commander in Chief, our hero.
I don't have any definite solutions but keeping the money in credit unions would help.
I don't have much to say on Obama except that he did too much of what he could have prevented by allowing the slide to continue. Others have discussed this on this site.
obama lovers??
its idiots like you who don't understand that obama is a lot better than bush
but who is not superman, and cannot change everything all at once
it is idiots like you that are strengthen the right wing and therefore the corporations and helping ruin this country
but then again, you might be a republican plan, who is trying to get everyone to take away their supporting obama, by constantly trashing him
no i am not an obama lover, i know he is not perfect, but i don't wish to participate in your destroying support for him
One doesn't have to be a rightwing Republican or (heaven forbid) a Teabagger to realize that Obama has opted to continue many, if not most of G. W. Bush's stupid, vicious policies, both here and abroad. Don't kid yourself.
According to the 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner PolitiFact, President Obama has broken over 500 of his campaign promises. Was the man merely ignorant of what a president can actually accomplish, or is Obama simply a congenital liar?
http://uruknet.com/index.php?p=m65554&hd=&size=1&l=e
Obama is just a 'kinder and gentler' version of Junior. For him to place so many Robert Rubin protégées in his administration shows he's either totally incompetent or in on the scam of relieving Americans of their wealth.
You sound almost like my family and relatives with such "love Obama or else" talk. I voted for Obama under the thought that he would be better than Bush but so far, he has yet to prove it. If by better than Bush you mean being more neocon than Bush himself, fine. Obama may not be superman but as others on this forum have been discussing, Obama did make a lot of changes at once and it wasn't for the people who voted for him but the global business and war elite classes who were already doing great under Bush. Neither I nor anyone on this forum are destroying Obama's support. Obama destroyed his own support by hiring the same Clinton crooks who were just as responsible for destroying the economy as the Republicans. You might as well call yourself a Republican for defending Obama's support of the same Republican policies he keeps continuing. Grow up.
sierra7
Obama couldn't have gotten elected without wall street money....his employing of the same robber barons that were employed under that other vacuous minded president, Clinton who brought this country to its knees, well that's why he is not considered to be too smart. (Bush 2 certainly did his share of destroying this country with the seemingly forgotten $2-3 trillion dollar wars that have bankrupted this country.)
What is happening now is a good argument to have more than a two party system.....ruled by the same sides of the same faces.......when running they promise the world...when elected its all about money.
Our society is in decline......It's up to the people to stabilize it......turn away from material consumption and turn towards better public education, jailing economic exploiters and generally trying to rebuild not a society of maniacal consumerism, but a society of the people, for the people, and by the people.
"I think he's the finest Treasury Secretary since Alexander Hamilton, and I still believe that."
As far as sleazebuckets go, Bill Clinton ranks right at the top
"As far as sleazebuckets go, Bill Clinton ranks right at the top" -- lefttown
I agree!
It's a shame Bill won't just go away instead of continuing to prove a what a murderous thief he truly is.
Whatever Robert Rubin thinks of "the people" he evidently has a higher regard for himself. If there is a rise in some speculative financial instrument he has created-what a rush! How brilliant! It must be that his wisdom is creating value right out of thin air. Yes we still need people to work and labor but they are just the automata, the fodder, the blind stupid mechanical means to an glorious end which is essentially created by the financier's genius. They are not stakeholders because they do not really create the value. As Andrew Carnegie said to his workers, "you're lucky to have me around---" and a hundred years later, even though Andrew and J.P. and Jay are no longer with us their self aggrandizing spirit lives on in Rubin and the trained seals in his entourage who bark, clap and squeeze the horn in time and on pitch. Rubin trained them himself, give him credit for that.
Sioux Rose
TAMMONS: I love the part about the trained seals... "Wanted: Slippery Sycophants... Let them eat fish," style.
The true face of Liberalism emerges, and it's not a hippie who sips lattes and eats tofu, but instead a free-market fanatic.
You sure it's "Liberalism", not Libertarianism?
Well, I'm pretty sure they share common roots.
maxpayne-Neo-Liberalism anyway. They want a liberated market, meaning one free of gov't regulation and rules.
I note that the original article we are commenting on is from Huffington Post.
I'm not sure who is in charge of editorial decisions at Common Dreams, but this article about a Hamilton Project conference is pretty darn dry compared with this bombshell being dropped on Bob Rubin's pretty little tush by a bombshell math major domina-trixy:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/iris-mack/bob-rubin-just-wants-to-b_b_557621.html
Iris Mack: "Bob Rubin Just Wants to Be Cuddled".
Ray Duray: I'd rather he were filleted, and I think the Iris Mack Attack has done an outstand job of it!
These mutants from paulson to rubin, obama to bush, pelosi to delay, cheney to emmanuel deserve the same treatment as one of their fascist predecessors, benito mussolini.
For those who may not be aware of the fate of Benito Mussolini, here's an extremely graphic photographic website. Not suitable for work or children.
http://www.custermen.com/ItalyWW2/ILDUCE/Mussolini.htm
sierra7
Mussolini had a particular penalty to be paid by those who "betrayed" him such as upper class industrialists, or upper intellectuals of the Italian Fascist society....he forced them to drink Castor Oil.....It certainly was a "cure-all"!
About "castor oil" -- Fellini included practice in his 1973 film, Amarcord.
If I remember right, Il Duce was hung upside down (along with his mistress) at a gas station.
What brand of gasoline should the stringing-up of Robert Rubin be associated with?
"What brand of gasoline should the stringing-up of Robert Rubin be associated with?"
Good question. I do not know Rubin's oil investments or which company Citibank has the biggest ties but I'd think whichever oil company is supported most by Rubin and Citibank would be fitting.
I see a lot similarities between nazi Germany and fascist Italy and the present day US. The "leaders" of our country are destroying so many of their own citizens while inflicting terrible suffering on other nations just as the nazis and fascists did. I don't see how they deserve any better fate.
The US attack on Afghanistan is similar to the Italian attack on Ethiopia. Simple bullying while proclaiming greatness because of military victories against a much less capable foe. And Germany's attack on Poland seems reminiscent of the US attack on Iraq. Fallujah was the modern day Warsaw Ghetto.
It's all so sick.
BP
Joe
Robert Rubin is poisoning Washington again.
The former Treasury Secretary who presided over the nearly-fatal deregulation of the financial industry -- then made $126 million nearly killing Citigroup . . .
This is not merely an accurate portrait of the so-called "financial sector" and the federal government but of the United States itself, with its propensity for chicanery first and everything else last.
HE'S ALIVE !!!
Robert Rubin, when he was Slick Willie's Treasury Secretary, was the guiding force behind the trashing of the Depression era law called Glass-Steagall that had put a firewall between commercial banks and Wall Street.
As soon as he got the "Financial Services Modernization Act" passed, Robbie resigned and went to Wall Street to join in the plundering of the economy.
He, along with that clown Summers, are pushing now to further reduce corporate income taxes, when the amount corporations pay, is at an all time low.
"Last week, Forbes magazine published what the top U.S. corporations paid in taxes last year. “Most egregious,” Forbes notes, is General Electric, which “generated $10.3 billion in pretax income, but ended up owing nothing to Uncle Sam. In fact, it recorded a tax benefit of $1.1 billion.” Big Oil giant Exxon Mobil, which last year reported a record $45.2 billion profit, paid the most taxes of any corporation, but none of it went to the IRS:
In fact, in 2008, the Government Accountability Office found that “two out of every three United States corporations paid no federal income taxes from 1998 through 2005."
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/04/06/exxon-tax/
Fire Larry Summers:
Lawrence Summers, director of President Barack Obama's National Economic Council, took in more than $2.7 million in speaking fees paid by organizations that included Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., and Bank of America Corp., among other companies now receiving taxpayer funds in the economic bailout.
'Summers also was paid more than $1.4 million in salary and over $3.7 million in other compensation by the investment firm D.E. Shaw & Co. in the past 16 months, according to financial disclosure forms of top White House officials that the administration made public today.' - Bloomberg
'Lawrence Summers, a top economic adviser to U.S. President Barack Obama, was paid about $5.2 million by hedge fund D.E. Shaw in the past year, financial disclosure forms released by the White House showed' - Reuters
"Asked by feisty moderator Chrystia Freeland of Reuters to explain why, if our capital markets are the best in the world, job creation is so weak, panelist and Berkeley economics professor Alan Auerbach instead launched into a disquisition on tax policy and the need to reduce corporate income taxes."
I guess professor of "economics", Alan Auerbach, doesn't know that many financial firms paid executives bonuses that were larger than the profits they made last year. That of course would not only take money from investors, but from taxpayers who bailed-out these bottom-of-the-barrel scum.
Furthermore, we've heard the BS once before that the George W. Bush's tax breaks for the rich would create jobs here in the U.S.; but instead, they were created in China, India, Indonesia, etc..
Seems there was an article here not that long ago about Bill Clinton admitting they made bad decisions and his advisors were wrong. Now he sings Rubin's praises...in addition to complete amorality, these people have no soul.
As an aside, Hamilton was the big bank, strong federal gov't, strong executive power promoter. He is the revered hero of the Federalist Society which has spawned John Roberts, Sam Alito, A Scalia and C Thomas. Hamilton is the original "unitary executive" theorist and, as Treasury Secretary, manipulated Congress and currency to benefit the NY bankers of the day.
and who were his wife's relatives.
" "He's taken a few licks lately, like all of us have," Clinton said. But "I think he's the finest Treasury Secretary since Alexander Hamilton, and I still believe that.""
Sickening.
This is huff and puff. Nobody really cares any more. There is massive international movement away from association with the US economy. It is all to do with goodwill. There is even discomfort in the malls around products of the good old US of A.
Get the military hell out of Iraq and Afghanistan and out of the rest of the world. Now!
Funnily enough the US economy will suddenly improve. First thing is the encrusting scales will fall off. US citizens will begin to be able to look the world in the eye. They will find it is a relatively kind eye. This is the truth that US citizens in their monumental and childish stupidity cannot see.
Various scalely corporations will suffer for war crimes and crimes against the US people of course. Boeing, Lockheed and a long list of less public entities that have profited handsomely from misallocated funds and used the massive cash injections to revitalise their product lines while disguising the degradation, ineptitude and ethical sloth that produced this need, will consequently look very different for sure, but so will a very large number of smaller businesses with military tainted balance sheets.
Time to look up the rear end of the US economy. Trace the input of the lobby. There is a bloody big and disgusting thing in there, busy intimately touching every US family !
This is not Deep Throat. This is Deep Arse. That so many could become such a pornographic reality defies all previous the imaginations.
"Get the military hell out of Iraq and Afghanistan and out of the rest of the world. Now!"
But, James, if we did that, all of that illegal oil and drug money might end up in the hands of European banksters!