Former Treasury Secretary Rubin On Meltdown: "Nobody Was Prepared For This"

Robert Rubin speaks up for himself:

"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.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[KillTheMessenger]

Nobody was prepared for this?

Now that's interesting because I was. I keep my money in cash for quite some time... because I had a feeling that this couldn't end well. Not to mention that I did not buy into overheated home prices for the past three years.

I guess, Mr. Rubin, some people did see it coming, after all.

[Rule Of Law]

Mr Rubin, you lying sack of crap--explain this, then--

The Bush administration backed off proposed crackdowns on no-money-down, interest-only mortgages years before the economy collapsed, buckling to pressure from some of the same banks that have now failed. It ignored remarkably prescient warnings that foretold the financial meltdown, according to an Associated Press review of regulatory documents.

"Expect fallout, expect foreclosures, expect horror stories," California mortgage lender Paris Welch wrote to U.S. regulators in January 2006, about one year before the housing implosion cost her a job.

Bowing to aggressive lobbying _ along with assurances from banks that the troubled mortgages were OK _ regulators delayed action for nearly one year. By the time new rules were released late in 2006, the toughest of the proposed provisions were gone and the meltdown was under way.

[Rule Of Law]

No Answer? Hey, Bob, if I had said, "with all due respect, you lying sack of crap-" would that have helped?

[obamaluv]

After following the presedential campaign, I thought the collapse was all due to Sara Palin Now I am not sure.

[arvay]

For years, it's been clear that the US consumer-driven economy was headed for a large smashup.

Americans have been encouraged to believe that housing prices would always climb, that MasterCard would always give them higher debt limits and that it's prudent to borrow against your home to finance a $100,000 kitchen, more cars, expensive vacations, etc. This despite a clear historical record that shows markets always come down eventually.

Then, big banks and other institutions -- like CitiBank as headed by Robert Rubin -- started issuing sub-prime mortgages and "packaged" the debt in "instruments" that were created with what sees more like metaphysics than financial science. How many bad debts can be mixed with good to form a security? A little arsenic with your food, Bunkie? How much is safe?

No, Robert Rubin is smart enough to know this would collapse. Maybe he was surprised at the magnitude, but he knew and obviously didn't care whle the big bucks were rolling in.

The man ought to be advising Obama from a federal prison, where he's serving a reduced sentence for ratting out all his accomplices.

[planetjeffy]

Rubin did great things for the economy in the clinton admin. However, when every bozo is coming up to you and trying to tell you to buy a house because they will finance everybody and get a neg amortized loan with a balloon payment in 5 years because you will be able to flip the house - even I saw this coming a mile away.

[truthynesslover]

you mean like the dot com bubble?Now the housing bubble?yeah thanks alot!

[joebiz]

If Wall Street was not prepared, why would it be prepared in the future?

They knew of the implending implosion . . . they did nothing. Fakirs, crooks, hack, second acts.

[PacificGatePost]

We have created unrestrained, and independent leadership in the form of omnipotent economists. They are not what they seem.

http://pacificgatepost.blogspot.com/2008/11/economists-our-new-philosopher-kings.html

¨Perhaps society has simply overplayed them.

[cbates]

So, how long did it take for this game of Monopoly to come to an end. The way the monopoly game starts is that the banks give each player a certain amount of money and then the players roll the dice and start moving along the road of success or not success. Some will end up in jail and others will prosper. Currently, we have the banks giving out money to restart the game and let us see how long before this version of the game ends.

The only piece I never got about monopoly is were the money came from to start the game. Now I know it comes from the working class or let us say citizens. We should stop complaining and distribute the wealth to get the economy going again. Really no one could have seen this thing coming and if the credit swap investors had bought insurance we would not be in this mess.

So let the games begin.

[larry278]

I wonder if these stories would continue to be so popular among the experts if each one were negotioting a plea bargain. There is a remote possibility that these experts will appear on TV news as they take their demeaning perp walks after their arrests.
Would the orgies of self congratulation be as popular among the experts if they had to eat a brown bag lunch during the event which was held at an immense abandoned warehouse or factory & they were seated on inexpensive, stackable, plastic chairs at folding tables similar to tables use at flea markets? A telecast of such an event & the speechs at the event could attract a large audience.

[schatsie]

The man should win the Republican Oscar for telling the biggest whopper with a straight face!!!

[Indie2008]

Tell us again how NAFTA was going to be good for American workers !

[JayDDrew]

Robert Rubin, Alan Greenspan, and anyone else who didn't see this coming should immediately tear up any degree or credentials they have obtaioned over the years and never step in front of a microphone or put pen to paper again.
Anyone who argued this couldn't happen were either lying through their teeth or idiots.
I refer you to a video compilation of one Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital. You can find it on Youtube. It shows numerous clips of interviews on Fox News, CNBC, etc., surrounded by idiot pundits laughing at him as he predicts EXACTLY what has unfolded the last 2 years.
I must say over that period of time, I lost interest in shows such as the Fox Saturday financial lineup and the talking heads on CNBC. Every day brought new predictions with little or no followup to how wrong they had been on past shows. What a bunch of useless talking heads!
I do not give Mr. Rubin and the others the benefit of the doubt - they are too intelligent to believe this COULDN'T have happened, though they could have argued it wouldn't have happened. But as it began to unfold, they did America a major disservice by not speaking up when they had the bully pulpit.

[truthynesslover]

They are followers of ayn rand too.survival of the fittest.I guess that means to them whoever steals the most wins?

[joebaggadonuts]

Liars to the left of me, Liars to the right, here I am stuck in the middle with you.

For God's sake, he even failed to learn the lesson of Greenspan. Shut up already, Rubin. You are simply digging a deeper hole. The last election proved that the people are thinking and seeing through this baloney. I used to think you were a smart guy. Now, not so much.

Nice comments on the referred to page too. Some worth reading.

[nogimmicks]

That is exactly the point. It is just too bad Obama put his people in charge of the "recovery" plan. Recovery through giving even more public money to the super-rich owners of the financial 'casinos' and little or nothing to infrastructure, education, manufacturing, health. The "bailout" needs to be stopped and reversed.

[eugenegerard]

Every one of these financial manipulators belong behind bars.