Rubin says not to blame for Citi's troubles: WSJ

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Robert S. Lee" <rlee () encoda com>
Date: November 28, 2008 11:14:34 PM EST
To: "dave () farber net" <dave () farber net>
Subject: FW: Rubin says not to blame for Citi's troubles: WSJ

Rubin, stressing the important point (he could have made more  
somewhere else):
Other point  is that  Greenspan is not responsible.
As a matter of fact nobody is responsible.
Shit happens.
Who could have forecast that if you buy mortgages guaranteed by people  
you don’t know, granted by people you don’t know, on real estate you  
have never seen,  that  you could get in trouble doing that?  Who  
could have known?  Well not buying whole mortgages, exactly.  That  
would be stupid.  Everyone knows that.  You buy little pieces of a   
million mortgages.  That changes it all.  That spreads the risk and  
who the hell cares that there is one unknown borrower and a thousand  
unknown lenders?
It used to be the people who used to run this country were no smarter  
and no dumber than we.  No more.
Bob Lee’s first law:  if you cannot explain it to the guy who fixes  
your car, don’t  do it.
= = =

Snippet:
"I bet there's not a single year where I couldn't have gone somewhere  
else and made more," said Rubin, according to the Journal.

= = =


Rubin says not to blame for Citi's troubles: WSJ
Friday November 28, 9:04 pm ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former U.S. Treasury secretary Robert Rubin said  
the near-collapse of Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C - News), where he is a  
senior counselor, was due to the buckling financial system and not his  
own mistakes, according to an interview published on The Wall Street  
Journal's website on Friday.
Rubin, who is also a director at Citigroup, acknowledged he was  
involved in a board decision to ramp up risk-taking in 2004 and 2005,  
according to the paper, and said if executives had executed the plan  
properly, the bank's losses would have been less.

The Journal said Rubin has earned $115 million in pay since 1999,  
excluding stock options.

"I bet there's not a single year where I couldn't have gone somewhere  
else and made more," said Rubin, according to the Journal.

Rubin cited former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan as another  
example of someone whose reputation has been unfairly damaged by the  
financial crisis, according to the Journal

The paper reported that Rubin said of the current crisis: "what came  
together was not only a cyclical undervaluing of risk (but also) a  
housing bubble and triple-A ratings were misguided," he said. "There  
was virtually nobody who saw that low-probability event as a  
possibility."

Rubin told the Journal that the Citigroup board could bear some  
responsibility and that some things should have been done differently.

The former Treasury secretary also gave his support to Citigroup chief  
executive Vikram Pandit.

"Vikram runs this company on a worst reasonable case for this economy.  
Essentially, the pieces of Citi will look how they do today," the  
Journal quotes Rubin as saying.

Citigroup could not immediately be reached for comment.





Robert Lee
RLee () Encoda com
Work:   610-397-1632, Ext 207
Cell:      610-724-1288
Home:  410-819-6856

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