May 20, 2011
Ezra Klein apparently thinks so. He turned to Mr. Rubin to get his assessment of the risks of letting the country default on its debt.
As Treasury Secretary, Rubin pushed the high dollar policy that created the enormous trade imbalance that still afflicts the U.S. economy. He also stood by as the stock bubble rose to ever more dangerous levels. He insisted on removing restrictions on financial industry risk-taking, over-riding efforts by other regulators.
After leaving the Clinton administration he became a top official at Citigroup. Citigroup packaged hundreds of billions of dollars of bad mortgages into mortgage backed securities, helping to inflate the housing bubble. The bank was only saved from collapse with a massive government bailout. Mr. Rubin pocketed over $100 million for his work with the bank.
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