More on Robert Rubin's new book
Robert Rubin, first head of Clinton's National Economic Council, and his second Secretary of the Treasury, has written his memoirs, with co-author, Slate editor Jacob Weisberg: In An Uncertain World.
David Warsh reviews the book briefly in the New York Times, here: "'In an Uncertain World': The Man Behind the Surplus (Remember?)": "...this gem of a book." He summarizes some of Rubin's story, compares Rubin to Andrew W. Mellon, Republican Treasury Secretary during the 1920s, but does little evaluation of the book itself.
Robert Lenzner reviews the book for Forbes, here: "Robert Rubin On Surviving The 1990s" Lenzer strongly recommends the book ("...you must read Rubin on finance as you would read Kissinger on diplomacy.") , although he finds Rubin reticent about the internal politics of policy making ("All the passionate infighting and internecine politics that pervaded the White House in the Clinton era are absent from In an Uncertain World, providing an antiseptic picture of reality."). Rubin has certainly had experience with financial crises, the future holds more:
"Rubin predicts that "future financial crises are almost surely inevitable and could be even more severe." The reason is that "markets are getting bigger, information is moving faster, flows are larger and trade and capital markets have continued to integrate."
Wall Street's chronic memory lapses always lead to another disaster, he believes: "The collapse of the southwest real estate bubble in the United States didn't prevent investors from over-investing in Asia. The Asian crisis didn't prevent the Nasdaq bubble from developing." Rubin says he was "surprised by how rapidly the crisis mentality vanished. People can forget the lessons of a painful experience very quickly, and that can lead to poor decisions."
Greg Farrell at
USA TODAY also has a good review, here:
"Rubin turns out compelling memoir". "...Rubin's central theme, drawn from a philosophy course at Harvard in the 1950s: that "nothing is provably certain," and that in an uncertain world, the best way to conduct your affairs is through probabilistic decision making." Farrell also recounts an early Clinton administration cabinet retreat:
"Rubin captures his inability, or unwillingness, to open up with an anecdote about a "bonding" session for Cabinet members at Camp David early in Clinton's presidency.
"The concept � which was the vice president's � might well have been good, but the event itself was pretty awful," he writes. "Saturday night, after dinner, we sat around in a circle, and each of us was supposed to talk about something the others didn't know about us. The president talked about having been overweight when he was in school and how everyone had made fun of him. When my turn came, I said I didn't have anything I particularly wanted to share. By that point, (then-Treasury secretary) Lloyd Bentsen had wisely gone home for the evening."
Brad Delong is reading, and enjoying, the book:
"Robert Rubin Makes a Mistake" and
"A Little Polite Score-Settling".
Carol Loomis provides a biogrpahical sketch of Rubin for Fortune magazine on November 24, here: "The Larger-Than-Life Life of Robert Rubin". This isn't really a review of the book. Loomis reviews Rubin's career at Goldman Sachs before his stint with Clinton, and at Citigroup after. Four paragraphs cover Rubin's time with Clinton. Here are three:
"From the start, Rubin was intent on persuading Clinton to forgo some of the campaign promises he'd made about lowering taxes and to focus instead on reducing the huge budget deficits of the early 1990s. Politically difficult as it was to do so, Clinton accepted Rubin's arguments, and during his administration the budget moved from deficit to the surplus that was handed over to George W. Bush. Waging the deficit battle, Rubin often encountered stiff opposition from tax-cutting proponents in Congress and spending enthusiasts in his own administration, among them Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. At one tense moment in 1995, Rubin appears to have done a little probabilistic thinking, found the odds not great for his side, and concluded he should be proactive. Making an SOS call to New York businessman and former cabinet officer Peter "Pete" Peterson, Rubin asked Peterson to help arrange a bipartisan display of support for fiscal discipline. Peterson engineered a double-truck newspaper ad that pleaded for balanced budgets and that was signed by 96 high-level businessmen (yes, they were all men). One of the six lead signers, along with Peterson, was CSX chairman John Snow, now Secretary of the Treasury and custodian of a 2004 budget deficit forecast to be $480 billion.
Working with Rubin in all his economic battles, including those that focused on the financial morasses of Mexico and Asia, was a team of people he drew deeply into his decision-making process and who came to be highly respected. Mark Malloch Brown, who worked with Treasury when he was at the World Bank in the 1990s and is now at the United Nations, calls this team "probably the most formidably excellent since Alexander Hamilton's." The names of Hamilton's folk may not pop readily to all minds, but Rubin's included Lawrence Summers, Rubin's successor as Secretary of the Treasury and now president of Harvard, and Timothy Geithner, an undersecretary to Rubin who was just named to head the New York Fed. Both admire Rubin greatly, and that is probably not just because he helped each get his job. Summers, now 49, elegantly focuses on Rubin's decision-making powers: "For some people, the defining act is a speech, for some an argument, for some an essay. For Bob, the balanced and nuanced decision is the defining act." Geithner, who is 42, says that "while Rubin enjoys an amazing amount of public respect and credibility, people who have worked with him know that he's substantially better than even that exalted perception."
Part of Rubin's approach to decisions at the Treasury was to put them off as long as possible. Some people might call that procrastination; Rubin called it getting that one last fact or well-judged opinion, from whoever at the table might offer it, that might make a decision the right one. Geithner says the young members of the Treasury staff would on occasion rush into Rubin's office, imploring him for a decision about something consequential. Rubin's first question would often be, "How much time do we have before we have to decide?" Summers tabs this Rubin's habit of "preserving his optionality."
I've also come across this July 2000 PBS
Frontlinetranscript of an interview with Rubin by Chris Bury:
"Interview Robert Rubin". This interview appears to be part of a PBS retrospective on the Clinton Administration. The site also includes interviews with administration economic figures Leon Panetta (OMB Director) and Robert Reich (Labor Secretary).
This posting continues the summary of commentary on Rubin's book that I began with this post: "Robert Rubin memoirs".
