Clinton: Rubin and Summers Gave Me Wrong Advice on Derivatives,

[kentuck]

and I Was Wrong To Take It

In my EXCLUSIVE “This Week” interview, I asked former President Bill Clinton if he thought he got bad advice on regulating complex financial instruments known as derivatives from his former Treasury Secretaries, Robert Rubin and Larry Summers. He acknowledged that all three of them were wrong about derivatives.

“On derivatives, yeah I think they were wrong and I think I was wrong to take because the argument on derivatives was that these things are expensive and sophisticated and only a handful of investors will buy them and they don’t need any extra protection, and any extra transparency. The money they’re putting up guarantees them transparency,” Clinton told me.

“And the flaw in that argument,” Clinton added, “was that first of all sometimes people with a lot of money make stupid decisions and make it without transparency.”

The former President also said he was also wrong about understanding the consequences if the derivatives market tanked. “The most important flaw was even if less than 1 percent of the total investment community is involved in derivative exchanges, so much money was involved that if they went bad, they could affect a 100 percent of the investments, and indeed a 100 percent of the citizens in countries, not investors, and I was wrong about that.”

.........more


http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/04/clinton-rubin-and-summers-gave-me-wrong-advice-on-derivatives-and-i-was-wrong-to-take-it.html


.

[Me.]

1. Whoa

Clinton throwing Rubin under the bus

[Demeter]

12. About Time Somebody Did

Ah, to be in the time and place of hari-kiri.

[Mojorabbit]

22. Admitting he was wrong

is an adult and wonderful thing to hear. That is the difference between Dems and the other party.

[Grand Taurean]

2. Bob Rubin was doing Wall Streets banking.

He was notorious for becoming nasty and going on the verge of physical violence against anyone who opposed the repeal of the Glass-Steagal act.

[kentuck]

3. And he was being paid $100 million by CitiCorp....

and he is now feigning ignorance about what was going on??

[elleng]

4. bob rubin was CERTAINLY NOT the only one, or even major one,

supporting glass-steagal repeal; that fight went on for a long time.

[depakid]

18. And they were warned REPEATEDLY about the inevitable consequences

Much as they were with media, energy and accounting deregulation.

(Clinton had a veto overridden on the latter, so he doesn't share the blame for that fiasco).

[inna]

5. Isn't this sort of huge?

Good on Clinton, sounds like.

[elleng]

21. Yes, But!

Appears to be quite measured (thats what they do). And won't be any comments on Brooksley Born, I expect.

[Uncle Joe]

6. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, kentuck.

[depakid]

7. You have to respect the big dog for admitting it

Just as you have wonder about Obama for hiring these sorts of people.

[tabatha]

8. Clinton also admitted that the mess in Haiti

is thanks to some of his policies.

[FrenchieCat]

11. He also admitted that he should have been more involved in Rwanda,

and also admitted that he sorry about DOMA and DADT.

Has he admitted about NAFTA yet....

cause after all of that, there ain't much left.

[Demeter]

14. Such Admission Would Have Been More Impressive At the Time of Happening

and that's a big hint, Mr. Obama, sir.

[FrenchieCat]

16. Amazing that This President gets blamed for things (who knows what).....

and Clinton was able to ride on the popularity of those economic policies,
and now...wait for it!, he can ride on the good will for apologizing for those exact same policies.

Pres. Obama ain't allowed to even scratch his ass without everyone all up in his face,
telling him he is a socialist, while are others are pissed that he didn't nationalize everything
or act like a socialist.

Must be good to be a White person in this country. Cause one can get away with
doing any old damn thing, and everyone will simply love those 3 day old dirty drawers.

[saracat]

25. Wow. Clinton gets to be attacked because he is "white" seriously?

and by some who routinely assume anyone who criticizes Obama must be doing it for racial reason? Wow. Just wow. I guess this absolutely proves the GOP are not alone in their hypocrisy. One can like or dislike any President's policies but IMHO assuming criticism or applause should be given for reasons of race is just beyond belief for anyone claiming to be a liberal OR progressive.

" Amazing that This President gets blamed for things (who knows what).....
and Clinton was able to ride on the popularity of those economic policies,
and now...wait for it!, he can ride on the good will for apologizing for those exact same policies.

Pres. Obama ain't allowed to even scratch his ass without everyone all up in his face,
telling him he is a socialist, while are others are pissed that he didn't nationalize everything
or act like a socialist.

Must be good to be a White person in this country. Cause one can get away with
doing any old damn thing, and everyone will simply love those 3 day old dirty drawers "

[FrenchieCat]

9. So, you give props for someone admitting his mistake about derivatives over a decade later,

which led to where we are....
but want to wonder about the one trying to regulate those same derivatives?

Interesting.

[depakid]

13. One has to wonder why anyone would hire the very sorts who caused the problems

rather than those who got it right all along.

No surprise then that those same people are opposing responsible measures like a financial transactions and Tobin tax, which would not only bring in 100-150 billion or so per year, but would also discourage non-productive speculation that manipulates and distorts the markets.

This despite pressure from our European allies- and other eminent economists.

[FrenchieCat]

15. Whatever Obama has or hasn't done, he ain't deregulated shit.....

So you can blame him and the folks around him if you want (and he has many,
and not all of them think the same)....blame him for nothing as of yet,

but I'm glad that at the very least Clinton is man enough a decade later to at least own
up to his part. But that seems to be his MO these day on everything. And I'll say
that Rubin et al had nothing to do with more than half of what Clinton did wrong during
his presidency. But hey....he's got your respect, so he's good to go.

[depakid]

17. I've yet to see you accept a valid criticism

and I doubt anyone here will live to see the day.

Fact is that there were PLENTY of eminent economists to choose from who got it right, and Obama went with (and rewarded) the Rubinites- despite their dismal failures- and in Gaithner's case, despite major warning signs of what may be the first scandal to erupt in this administration.

It's reasonable to draw some conclusions from the fact that people like Stiglitz, Volker, Dean Baker, Elizabeth Warren and on and on are on the sidelines, rather than directing policy.

Clinton essentially just admitted (the painfully obvious) that cozying up to the bankster crowd was a mistake. Obama seems determined to test the fates- and may well learn that lesson for himself the hard way, too.

[FrenchieCat]

19. So forgive Clinton, admire him for admitting his failures....

and blame Clinton's failures on Obama.

Obama's SEC is going after Banks, but hey....
let's just pretend otherwise.

[depakid]

20. It's one thing to make an egregious error beforehand...

even though one was warned- it's quite another to hire the same unrepentant folks who screwed up after one knows full well the consequences.

As to the SEC, I'm still waiting for hell to freeze over so the DOJ can prosecute the corrupt officials who gave Madoff, Stanford and hosts of others a pass.

Doesn't take a genius to now that those were inside jobs.

Probably too "partisan" and "divisive" to do that though. Wouldn't be "looking forward."

[laughingliberal]

23. Perhaps we'd like President Obama to learn from Clinton's failures before they become Obama's

failures. It may have taken Clinton this many years to say the advice from Rubin and the Lar was bad but there were plenty of people who already knew it was bad. I would be a lot more comfortable if they were not part of the economic team and I thought that from the outset. I hope we see very strong financial reform and have been encouraged by what I've heard from the President the past few days.

Nevertheless, I would still feel more comfortable if Larry Summers, Robert Rubin, and Tim Geithner never had the opportunity to influence policy concerning other people's money again and I hope Clinton's statements now will cause the President to think twice about taking their advice. And I wouldn't stay awake grieving if Bernanke's hands were off our money, too, while we're at it.

[Grand Taurean]

10. True.

[InkAddict]

24. Forgive me...the best LAID plans....whatever....n/t

[BlooInBloo]

26. I bet there were dirty fucking hippies around at the time, who screamed not to do it...

An apology specifically to them would also be nice.

[Political Heretic]

27. He could also apologize to the evil, silly, farleft radicals who screamed about how stupid this was.

And were patronized and ridiculed, told that we were fringe idiots and irrelevant and we should trust the "experts" because its all just too complicated for our pretty little heads. :nuke:

We keep being right. I bet that's got to be annoying to these guys. :D