by flory
Everybody is pilng on poor Bobby Rubin . And that's as it should be, since Bob Rubin is the dog poop on the sole of Alan Greenspan's shoe.
He hit a nerve, did our Bob. More to the point, the whole Citigroup bailout appears to have hit a big nerve, which Bear Sterns and AIG and Fannie and Freddie and all the rest managed to miss. There's a question as to why this particular bailout, amongst the plethora of bailouts to date, would have twanged our national nerves so badly, but that it did so is undeniable.
Was it simply familiarity? Citigroup, unlike the rest, is a retail operation, so Joe and Jane Plumber can actually put a face on the news report's names. And given the joys of modern retail banking, they're probably not overly fond of those faces.
Or was it more comparative? Citi has the misfortune of holding its hand out at the same time as the auto companies. And for all the national angst as to whether or not the auto companies, and their tens of thousands of blue collar workers, deserve to dip into the national piggy bank, there didn't seem to be a bit of debate as to whether or not Citi's upper class bankers would get the same consideration.
The american public as a whole may not understand modern financial markets, but they're certainly smart enough to understand that something stinks here.
But at the end of the day, I think the criticism of Rubin is misdirected. The commentariat has focused on his patently idiotic buck passing:
Nobody was prepared for this,” Mr. Rubin said in an interview. He cited former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan as another example of someone whose reputation has been unfairly damaged by the crisis.
Really, what would you expect him to say? He can't exactly go on the front page of the Wall Street Journal and admit that he and Chuck Prince and Vikram Pandit knew all along that they were mobilizing a deliberate trainwreck. If he even hinted at something approaching an apology he'd be responsible for a mass heart attack in the legal offices. There will be lawsuits aplenty no matter what he says; giving the plaintiffs ammunition for their case probably isn't in his job description.
No. What he should be condemned for is the sheer bloody arrogance that had him agreeing to the damn interview in the first place. He knew going in that he was going to have to lie his ass off through the whole piece. And he did it anyway. He's bought into his own PR. He still believes in the majesty of the Teflon executive and that he'd get away with it.
Guess he was wrong
