I wrote in this space a couple weeks ago about Larry Summers’ decisive attempt to block Commodity Future Trading Commission chair Brooksley Born’s proposal for the regulation of derivatives.

Here’s some interesting material from an April 27 Times piece on Rubin which reminds us that Rubin, too, opposed regulating derivatives, the financial instruments which have played a large part in bringing us to the current economic crisis. [Emphasis added]

…on at least one occasion, Mr. Rubin lined up with Mr. Summers as well as Mr. Greenspan to block a 1998 proposal by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission that would have effectively moved many derivatives out of the shadows and made them subject to regulation.

…At an April 21, 1998, meeting with Brooksley Born, the chairwoman of the commodities commission, Mr. Rubin made no secret of his feelings about her proposal. “It was controlled anger. He was very tough,” [commission attorney Michael] Greenberger recalls. “I was at several meetings with him, and I’ve never seen him like that before or after.” Ms. Born didn’t return calls for comment.

Mr. Rubin says he was against the proposal because he feared it could create chaos in the markets, rather than actually improve oversight of derivatives.

Nope. Wouldn’t want to create chaos in the markets.

Why does this matter?

Because as Treasury secretary, Bob Rubin imposed lending policies on foreign nations in crisis which were devastating to poor people but safeguarded the investments of Wall Street banks such as Goldman Sachs—which is to say, Rubin’s old firm.

He also, as we now see, opposed the regulation of financial instruments pioneered and used to great profit (at the time, anyway) by, um, Goldman Sachs. Instruments which, ultimately, the taxpayers will pay for.

Now he has drained $150 million from Citigroup, and is surely working the phones to get the government to bail out that employer.

And yet, Rubin largely maintains a reputation as a disinterested public servant whose proteges are even now populating the White House.

Curious, that.