Bob Rubin, Reconsidered
Posted on September 21st, 2012 in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
In BusinessWeek, William Cohan writes a long, thoughtful, possibly overdue, and entirely devastating look at Bob Rubin’s career and his individual success against the backdrop of the impact of the policies he pursued.
For example:
“Nobody on this planet represents more vividly the scam of the banking industry,” says Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan. “He made $120 million from Citibank, which was technically insolvent. And now we, the taxpayers, are paying for it.”
On the other side of the coin, here’s Rubin being defended by, natch, Sheryl Sandberg—the one time Sandberg has peeked her head out into the media that I’m aware of since the disastrous Facebook IPO run by the Morgan Stanley guy she handpicked:
Like many Rubin defenders, Sheryl Sandberg suspects that her mentor has become a scapegoat for events beyond comprehension. “My own view is that, look, these have been hard times, and people need people to blame,” she says. “It doesn’t mean they blame the right people.”
Boy, is that weak.
This is the article that might finally prompt widespread reconsideration of Rubin’s alleged genius. Must reading for anyone interested in finance, politics, Harvard and ethical culture.
3 Responses
9/22/2012 11:42 am
It’s a disgrace that Rubin is still a member of the Harvard Corporation and therefore held up as someone Harvard faculty, students and staff are supposed respect. Harvard gives him legitimacy by keeping him on, and, much worse, sends a terrible message to anyone, particularly our students, who cares to know the facts.
There’s nothing new in the Bloomberg piece, which, however, nicely puts it all together. It’s depressing that there is nothing new but at the same time he is still on the board. The estimable Conrad Harper resigned at a moment (2005) when Robert Rubin should have been removed—Conrad was purportedly outraged that Summers, having just screwed up the university, was voted a raise by the board.
It’s hardly surprising that Sandberg, who bungled the amusingly disastrous IPO of Facebook and before that facilitated Google’s plundering of Harvard’s libraries, and Summers, who set that up and who with Greenspan and Rubin contributed to the misery of millions while continuing to enrich himself, defend Rubin in this piece. Those details ARE new, and interesting.
If the details on Rubin and Mack weren’t lurid enough for you, there’s racier and even more pathetic material that has also been out there for a while, and which is also relevant to the unsuitability of Rubin as a member of the Harvard Corporation:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/iris-mack/bob-rubin-just-wants-to-b_b_557621.html?page=2
Herbert S. “Pug” Winokur of Enron infamy got off the Corporation in 2002, so as to avoid “diverting attention from your agenda for Harvard and from the important work of the Corporation and the University.” Bob?
Then there are the principles we might learn from the example of Brooksley Born, the principled, non bought-and-sold public servant who was pushed aside by Greenspan/Rubin/Summers.
“I was very concerned about the dark nature of these [derivative] markets,” Born told the Washington Post in 2009. “I didn’t think we knew enough about them.”
In the Bloomberg piece, we read the insistence (in Sept. 2012) that the smartest guy in the room who helped make the whole system collapse is STILL the smartest guy in the room, practicing every piece of revisionist sophistry to persuade us—and himself— of that:
‘Born, Summers adds, didn’t know what she was attempting to regulate, making it as much of a reach to credit her with prophesizing the financial crisis as it is to hold Rubin or Summers responsible for failing to prevent it. “It should be noted,” adds Summers, “that the credit-default swaps and the collateralized-debt obligations that were central to the crisis barely existed at the end of the Clinton administration.” [parse: don’t blame me, nobody—except maybe Brooksley Born—could have seen this coming] Born declined to comment for this story.’
That Summer needs to dismiss, UTTERLY dismiss, Born’s warnings in 2012 is yet another sign of his inability to allow that he does not know, has not always known everything about everything. Socrates?
Back in 2009 SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt stated “I’ve come to know her as one of the most capable, dedicated, intelligent and committed public servants that I have ever come to know”, and stated that “I could have done much better. I could have made a difference.”
But my concerns are local. Again, it is a disgrace that Rubin is still a member of the Harvard Corporation, and about time he was rotated off. At this point Harvard runs the risk of seeming to keep him on to keep the other Harvard-connected banksters and vampire squid types on board for the campaign. Not good. Let’s just do it! If some credible anon will let us know how many board meetings Rubin has attended in the last four years, that would give us a good basis. And let’s start a Brooksley Born for honorary degree movement. It would only be four years after she got a JFK Profiles in Courage Award.
9/24/2012 2:20 am
Slightly off topic and not referring to Harvard specifically. Not one major school has released the endowment numbers for 6/30/12. This is several weeks after the numbers usually come out and many weeks after the audit is finished in August. Must mean very poor numbers for the schools in general and they’re probably trying to squeeze out every last penny in write ups of hard to value assets or waiting to tell how well they did in July, August and mtd in September.
5/18/2013 12:42 am
Nice to see you on Facebook, and I look forward to rediang our blog. Though my kids have long outgrown playing with Ostheimers I still set them out (and want to buy them), they are so beautiful!