Robert Edward Rubin
Former US Secretary of the Treasury, * August 29, 1938 in New
York 
R. moved to Miami Beach, Florida at an early age and graduated from Miami Beach High School. In 1960,
he graduated with a B.A. in economics from Harvard College. He later attended the London School of Economics after graduation and received an LL.B. from Yale Law School in
1964.
R. began his career as an attorney at the firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton in New York City. He joined Goldman Sachs in 1966 as an associate in the risk arbitrage department
and became a general partner in 1971. He joined the management committee in 1980 along with fellow Democrat Jon Corzine, later a U.S. senator and governor of New Jersey.
R. was Vice Chairman and Co-Chief Operating Officer from 1987 to 1990. From the end of 1990 to 1992,
R. served as Co-Chairman and Co-Senior Partner along with Stephen Friedman
.
After making his millions as a trader and an executive at Goldman Sachs, he joined the Clinton administration.
From January 1993, to January 1995,
R. served in the White House as Assistant to the President for Economic Policy. In that capacity, he directed the National Economic
Council NEC, which Bill Clinton created after winning the presidency. In 1994,
R. forced the Democrats running Fannie Mae to push the banks to issue home loans for people who were not credit worthy.
This action is one reason why the world since 2007 is in the mess.
In 1995, R. became Secretary of Treasury. In 1997 and 1998, R. and Greenspan
worked with the International Monetary Fund to combat financial crises in Russian, Asian, and Latin American financial
markets. In November 1999, Greenspan and R. recommended that Congress permanently strip the
Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) of regulatory authority over
derivatives ("Glass-Steagall Act" of 1933 designed to control speculation). This advice was accepted and derivatives were kept clear of regulation
(see below).
In 1999, R. joined Citigroup which had been created in 1998 by Sanford I. Weill
thru a $76 billion merger between Travelers and Citicorp.
In 1998, the merger would have run into problems connected with the "Glass-Steagall Act"
providing banking and insurance businesses to be kept separate. To speed up the
process of legislation overturning those regulations, Weill recruited ex-President Gerald Ford (Republican) to the Board of Directors and
R. (Secretary of Treasury) whom Weill was close to. With both Democrats and Republican on their side, the law was taken down.
As chairman of Citigroup’s executive committee,
R. was the bank’s resident sage, advising top executives and serving on the board while
steering clear of daily management issues.
R.
played a pivotal role in the bank’s current woes, by drafting a strategy that involved taking greater trading risks to expand its business and reap higher profits,
particularly in the creation of collateralized debt obligations (C.D.O.’s)
- securities that packaged mortgages and other forms of debt into bundles for resale to investors.
For a time, Citigroup’s megabank model paid off, as it rang up billions in earnings each quarter from credit cards, mortgages, merger advice and trading.
In late 2002, Charles Prince
, who had been Mr. Weill’s longtime legal counsel, was put in charge of Citigroup’s corporate and investment bank.
From 2003 to 2005, Citigroup more than tripled its issuing of C.D.O.’s, to more than $20 billion from $6.28 billion, and Citigroup
transformed into one of the industry’s biggest players. Firms issuing the C.D.O.’s generated fees of 0.4 percent to 2.5 percent of the amount sold
- meaning Citigroup made up to $500 million in fees from the business in 2005 alone.
After Citigroup's efforts ran into trouble in 2007, Prince was replaced in December
2007 by Vikram S. Pandit
, a former money manager and investment banker whom
R. had earlier recruited in a senior role. From November to December 2007,
R. served temporarily as Chairman, and thereafter as Director and Senior Counselor of
Citigroup. Since becoming chief executive, Pandit has been scrambling to put out fires.
R.’s total compensation from Citigroup has run about $160 million, while the shareholders have lost about $250 billion. Historians
may judge R., Greenspan, Paulson
and many others as the handmaidens of the Second Great Depression.
R.
also has served on the board of directors of the New York Stock Exchange, the Ford Motor Company,
the Harvard Corporation, the New York Futures Exchange, the New York City Partnership, the Center for National
Policy, the board of trustees of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Mt. Sinai Hospital and Medical School,
the Mayor of New York's Council of Economic Advisors and the Governor's Council on Fiscal and Economic Priorities for the State of New York.
In October 2003,
R. was named Vice Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations and in June
2007 Co-Chairman.
R. is one of President-elect Obama's principal economic
advisers. His protégés Timothy Geithner and Peter Orszag are being considered
by Obama for: Treasury secretary resp. Director of Office of Management and Budget.
R. is Jewish and married to Judith Oxenberg Rubin. They have two grown sons,
James Samuel and Philip Matthew.
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Letzte Änderung / Last update: 24.11.2008
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