Bob Rubin's philosophy was basically - whats good for Citibank is good for America (kind of a twist on the old saying "whats good for General Motors is good for America". This all worked well for about the first half of the Clinton administration because the US needed a financial restructuring. However it was taken to excess by Rubin constantly promoting an even stronger dollar when it was way over-valued. Financial institutions were making money hand over fist by borrowing in Japan at near zero rates and buying higher paying US securities - the carry-trade. This worked well as long as the dollar stayed strong (weak dollar would erase the higher US interest gains when you had to pay back the Japanese banks). During this too strong dollar time many companies were being squeezed by Canadian, European etc. competition who had weak currency price advantages. So, US companies had to get competitive. Many automated (eliminating employees) and many outsourced overseas to cut costs (eliminating employees). So is Rubin to blame? I think yes to a degree. He put his own financial interests ahead of the country (knowing he would go back to Citibank) and protected their carry-trade profits. This is the same Bob Rubin who was illegally lobbying the Treasury Department when he left office to protect Citibank's Enron bond portfolio.
Bringing Bob Rubin into the Clinton Cabinet and Administration was without a doubt, a pure stroke of genius. Anyone who says otherwise is totally ignorant. One of Rubin's greatest character traits was his habit of asking ( like most successful traders do): What else might happen? What if we're wrong? What could happen next? Rather than just assume that things will go as planned or as the fashionable idealogy or favorite administration model would have predicted. This is what is totally lacking in the Bush Economic team, Elaine Chao notwithstanding. ie.) Rubin single-handedly reduced long-term interest rates by getting the Treasury out of the market every week and going to Quarterly Refundings. This stopped corporate America from being "crowded-out" by the governments constant borrowing.
Quote from Tea: "During this too strong dollar time many companies were being squeezed by Canadian, European etc. competition who had weak currency price advantages. So, US companies had to get competitive. Many automated (eliminating employees) and many outsourced overseas to cut costs (eliminating employees)." Tell me, if the overly strong dollar was the problem that gave export nations such a competitive advantage during the Clinton Administration years, then why has our manufacturing sector back east and in the midwest basically closed-up shop with lay-off after lay-off while the dollar has plummeted 44% since October 2000?
Easy. Outsource and automation decisions are made ahead of time and take time to implement. There are foreign manufacturers making decisions now to move some manufacturing to the US that won't be implemented for a couple of years. Note: I am not saying that a weak dollar should be the US's policy. A market valued dollar is what is needed. Let nature take its course.
Robert Rubin came from GS - Goldman Sachs, not Citibank. He took over at Citibank after his administration departure. He was Chairmen at GS. Imagine that, a very rich man from a very influential family taking the lead at one of the richest most influential sall street firms, where having an Ivy League degree was/is/remains as common as breathing air (IOW - in other words, that's just about all that works there are Ivy Leaguers). Imagine being head over John Corizime, Senator from NJ (New Jersey), and other key financial leaders. His membership in the club brought credibility to his role in the Clinton Administration that the entire US economy benefited from. One of my senior designers that I worked with, explained just why we were having the success that we were during the boom years as we sat on the steps of the Federal Building, just across from the NYSE during one hot summer day in Wall Street. That credibility helped handle the currency crisis that arose from Latin America (recall the Brady Bond solutions....) and the currency crisis that arose in Souteast Asia (I seem to recall both Indonesia, Japan, Korea and Taiwan). The solutions not only worked but healed those problems in record time. Mexico paid back the 1.6 Trillion loan guarantee that the US underwrote in record time and way ahead of schedule. What was right for the international finance markets was right for the US domestic markets too. Citibank did not play a role in those decision making events, other than to participate in the execution of those decisions along with the other major domestic US and international institutions. your assumptions (as they were not facts at all) were significantly off too bad there's not another Robert Rubin on horizon....
see my quote and response... you might agree with it, .... as this came from my contacts from Wall Street, as well as my direct participation within the firms on the Canyon (wall street as its known to the workers there)
Right but if you have lived and worked in Japan and know them, you know that you need 10 excutives to make the same job of 2 US executives. Up to here is just a problem of cost .... but the bad is that the ratio in time to take decisions without consulting an upper level of management is much higher than in US. In few words : the two US Executives take decisions right know and act and cost less. Different for blue collars. You can argue about politics side, or in the fact that you like or dislike A. grenspan: but the fact is evident: He is the only one that has been able to create through a reflationary monetary politic a "fake" increase of Monetary Mass, which eventually pumped up and fueled the Markets. Results: I keep on be dramatically short in my mind but I'm obliged to take long positions to make money. To make it short the bias is up but was up even in january 2000 and we were out of a similar situation ( the opumping in money fìafter the 1998 Russian Crisis) . I'm here waiting for the short of the millenium: and I'll stay in for the next three years...... PS: DO NOT FORGET PEARL HARBOUR, Mr Chow do not show a particular attention to the right of those who have not been lucky enough.......and thsi is not bringing any good to this country
Re: 1000 jobs created in December. I read somewhere that the 1000 Shopping Mall Santa's were all laid off. Watch out for January's numbers! ROFLMAO!!!!!!
I stand corrected. Bob Rubin was Co-chairman of Goldman Sachs before becoming Secretary of the Treasury. http://www.citigroup.com/citigroup/corporate/businessheads/rubin.htm Of course GS and Citibank participated in the carry-trade that Bob Rubin protected by artificially pushing the dollar higher and higher. This contributed to destroying 2 million manufacturing jobs (but it did protect the near riskless profits of those who are "in the club").
the problem isn't clinton/rubin vs bush/neocons. the problem is nafta/gatt/wto/imf.............GLOBALIZATION....free trade. greenspan expanded the bubble when he bailed out his buddies at LTCM, thusly, leading to a very temporary ONE year budget surplus. clinton/bush/rubin/greencrap are all complicit in this whole globalization rape of america. as ross perot warned us....that sucking sound you hear are all these jobs being "outsourced" and if you don't think it will effect us all at least derivatively you are suckers.