Change? CitiBank, Bob Rubin & Obama.
“Citi never sleeps,” says the bank’s advertising slogan. But its directors apparently do. While CEO Vikram Pandit can argue that many of Citi’s problems were created before he arrived in 2007, most board members have no such excuse. Former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin has served on the Citi board for a decade. For much of that time he was chairman of the executive committee, collecting tens of millions to massage the Beltway crowd, though apparently not for asking tough questions about risk management.
The writers at the Deal Journal blog remind us of one particularly egregious massaging, when Mr. Rubin tried to use political muscle to prop up Enron, a valued Citi client. Mr. Rubin asked a Treasury official to lean on credit-rating agencies to maintain a more positive rating than Enron deserved. What signal will President-elect Barack Obama send if his Administration, populated with Mr. Rubin’s protégés, allows this uberfixer to continue flying hither and yon on the corporate jet while taxpayers foot the bill?
We just learned this week that CitiBank was one of the four failed banks that paid Bill Clinton “$2.1 million for 13 speeches he delivered on their behalf between 2004-2007.” So, in effect, your tax dollars from the bailout go in part to Bill & Hillary Clinton.
Ain’t life grand!
Meanwhile, Barack Obama’s idea of “change,” is to fill his cabinet with former Clinton administration people, the very same people who created this Fannie/Freddie-Community Reinvestment Act nightmare.