Robert Rubin

Robert Rubin in 2014

Robert Edward Rubin (born August 29, 1938) is an American retired banking executive, lawyer, and former government official. He served as the 70th United States Secretary of the Treasury during the Clinton administration from 1995 to 1999, after serving as the inaugural director of the White House National Economic Council from 1993 to 1995. Before his government service, he spent 26 years at Goldman Sachs, eventually serving as a member of the board and co-chairman from 1990 to 1992. He is currently a senior counselor at Centerview Partners, an investment banking advisory firm. Rubin is the author of the New York Times bestseller In an Uncertain World: Tough Choices from Wall Street to Washington (2003) and The Yellow Pad: Making Better Decisions in an Uncertain World (2023). He was a founder of The Hamilton Project, an economic policy think tank that produces research and proposals on how to create a growing economy that benefits more Americans. He is also co-chairman emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, a trustee of Mount Sinai Health System, and chairman of the board of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, a community development support organization.

Quotes

Philosophy, Probabilistic Thinking, and Uncertainty

• Internalizing the core tenet of Professor Demos’s teaching — weighing risk and analyzing odds and trade-offs — was central to everything I did professionally in the decades ahead in finance and government.
  • "Robert E. Rubin: Philosophy Prepared Me for a Career in Finance and Government", New York Times (April 30, 2018)

• Some people I’ve encountered in various phases of my career seem more certain about everything than I am about anything.
  • "In an Uncertain World: Tough Choices from Wall Street to Washington", p. xii

• The only place people find fulfillment is within themselves. And too often, that's the last place they look.
  • "In an Uncertain World: Tough Choices from Wall Street to Washington", p. 64

• Moments after being sworn in as Treasury Secretary in 1995, I stood in the Oval Office to advise the president on how to address the threat posed to us by the unfolding economic crisis in Mexico, an experience repeated two years later during the Asian financial crisis. I know what it's like to recommend complex responses with no certainty of success.
  • "Bringing the Economy Back to Life", New York Times (April 17, 2020)

Fiscal Policy

• We have an imperative need to address our unsustainable longer-term fiscal trajectory with sound economic policies. Few elected officials want to face this fact, but, at the very least, they should not make matters worse.
  • "The Republican tax plan’s five worst dangers", Washington Post (November 15, 2017)

• Unconventional monetary policy and stimulus can be part of a successful economic programme for a period of time. But they are no substitute for fiscal discipline, public investment and structural reform.
  • "Sound government finances will promote recovery", Financial Times (January 8, 2014)

• In the United States, refusal to confront a longer-term fiscal threat is not new.
  • "America’s debt has exploded. Why does no one care?", Washington Post (August 13, 2018)

Financial Markets

• Markets go up, markets go down.
  • "Markets enjoying a sugar high that will not last", by Lawrence Summers, Financial Times (January 29, 2017)

Effective Government

• We’ve spoken to many leaders in business and finance who, when it comes to economic policy, are open to the premise that Mr. Trump is a normal presidential candidate. We strongly disagree. The two of us have been involved in business, government and policy for many years, with more than a century of experience between us. We’ve worked with elected officials and business leaders across the ideological spectrum... When it comes to economic policy, Mr. Trump is not a remotely normal candidate. A second Trump term would pose enormous risks to our economy.
  • Kenneth Chenault and Robert Rubin. "The Enormous Risks a Second Trump Term Poses to Our Economy", New York Times (July 8, 2024)

• Some argue that many dire predictions raised at the start of Mr. Trump’s term did not come to pass. But he has expressed regret that his term was less radical than he would have liked — and has promised that his second term would be nothing like the first. From 2017 to 2021, Mr. Trump, while extreme in many respects, was constrained by key appointees who came from the traditional conservative establishment and by the need to appeal to the business community as he sought re-election. If he wins this November, he’s made clear that he’ll choose appointees who will be submissive to him, and he will have no looming re-election campaign providing an incentive to curb his most extreme impulses.
  • Kenneth Chenault and Robert Rubin. "The Enormous Risks a Second Trump Term Poses to Our Economy", New York Times (July 8, 2024)

• Mr. Trump would also take unprecedented action to diminish the independence of the Federal Reserve, pressuring it to set interest rates for his short-term political gain rather than the long-term health of the economy... Such actions could do great damage to our markets and to our economy by politicizing Federal Reserve Board interest rate decisions and undermining the broader credibility of the Fed.
  • Kenneth Chenault and Robert Rubin. "The Enormous Risks a Second Trump Term Poses to Our Economy", New York Times (July 8, 2024)

• Nearly every element of Mr. Trump’s second-term agenda would create great risk of economic harm. In aggregate, there is a high likelihood that his agenda would lead to chaos and unpredictability, including global instability, in that way reducing investment and business activity. Meanwhile, inflation would be increased by tariffs, immigration restrictions and larger fiscal deficits. Some may feel that we made it through one Trump term and are thus likely to make it through another. But a more apt analogy is that after we survived one round of economic Russian roulette, Donald Trump is asking us to take another spin — only this time with many more bullets in the chamber. That would be a very dangerous game.
  • Kenneth Chenault and Robert Rubin. "The Enormous Risks a Second Trump Term Poses to Our Economy", New York Times (July 8, 2024)

• For our country to succeed economically, our market-based system must function alongside strong, effective government. Strong, effective government, in turn, requires a functioning democratic process.
  • "H.R. 1 and H.R. 4 would reform our democracy. They'd also help our economy.", Washington Post (March 17, 2021)

Monetary Policy

• ECB [European Central Bank] President Mario Draghi’s famous promise to do ‘whatever it takes’ to preserve the eurozone was a masterly move to buy time. But monetary policy cannot solve the currency union’s problems.
  • "The Search for a Monetary-Policy Wizard and Political Moral Hazard", Wall Street Journal (February 23, 2015)

Poverty and Inequality

• To close great and growing wealth and income gaps, and to raise badly needed revenue for public investment, it’s not enough to lift the bottom up; we need to ask more of those at the top, too.
  • "Democrats, if We Remain Divided, We’ll Fall", New York Times (March 2, 2020)

• When millions of people remain mired in poverty, no matter how hard they work, our whole economy suffers. Consigning millions of people to the economic margins has a serious adverse effect on the economy for all of us.
  • "Robert Rubin: For 20 years, CDFIs have made neighborhoods better", CDFI Institute (March 6, 2014)

Child Tax Credit

• The refundable child tax credit is not inflationary if paid for; is not a disincentive to work; and ought to be viewed as a public investment with a high rate of return.
  • "Opinion: The child tax credit must become permanent. And refundable.", Washington Post (September 16, 2021)

• A refundable child tax credit can decrease infant mortality; improve the health and life expectancy of poor children and their parents; reduce exposure to abuse and neglect; reduce long-term health-care costs; and increase the future productivity, earnings and tax payments of child beneficiaries.
  • "Opinion: The child tax credit must become permanent. And refundable.", Washington Post (September 16, 2021)

Paid Leave

• While the FMLA [Family and Medical Leave Act] was a landmark achievement, it doesn’t go far enough. American workers and businesses need a universal paid leave program.
  • "Opinion: America needs a universal paid leave program", Washington Post (February 22, 2018)

Climate Change

• We do not face a choice between protecting our environment or protecting our economy. We face a choice between protecting our economy by protecting our environment — or allowing environmental havoc to create economic havoc.
  • "Robert Rubin: How ignoring climate change could sink the U.S. economy", Washington Post (July 24, 2014)

Criminal Justice

• Criminal justice reform is not just about being fair to the individuals who will be most directly affected, but it’s also about doing what’s right for our nation’s well-being.
  • "The Smart Way to Help Ex-Convicts, and Society", New York Times (June 3, 2016)

• People in prison are part of America, as are those who have been released. They are part of our society. And we have a powerful stake in their success.
  • "The Smart Way to Help Ex-Convicts, and Society", New York Times (June 3, 2016)

Higher Education

• Looking back, what most prepared me for the life I’ve led was the open exchange of ideas that I experienced in college and law school... I have seen firsthand the way America’s higher-education system strengthens our nation.
  • "Robert E. Rubin: Higher Education Isn’t the Enemy", The Atlantic (May 21, 2024)

• With its underlying principles of free expression and academic freedom, the university system is one of the nation’s great strengths. It is not to be taken for granted. Undermining higher education would harm all Americans, weakening our country and making us less able to confront the many challenges we face.
  • "Robert E. Rubin: Higher Education Isn’t the Enemy", The Atlantic (May 21, 2024)

• We invest in higher education because there’s a broad public purpose. Our colleges and universities are seen, rightly, as centers of learning, but they are also engines of economic growth... Institutions of higher education spur early-stage research of all kinds, create environments for commercializing that research, provide a base for start-up and technology hubs, and serve as a mentoring incubator for new generations of entrepreneurs and business leaders.
  • "Robert E. Rubin: Higher Education Isn’t the Enemy", The Atlantic (May 21, 2024)

• Higher education helps create the kind of citizenry that is central to a democracy’s ability to function and perhaps even to survive.
  • "Robert E. Rubin: Higher Education Isn’t the Enemy", The Atlantic (May 21, 2024)

Open Exchange of Ideas

• One does not have to agree with the sentiments being expressed by a speaker in order to be troubled by the idea that they would be suppressed because of their content.
  • "Robert E. Rubin: Higher Education Isn’t the Enemy", The Atlantic (May 21, 2024)

Quotes about Robert Rubin

• [May] twelfth was a day I had hoped would never come; Bob Rubin was returning to private life. I believed he had been the best and most important Treasury secretary since Alexander Hamilton in the early days of our Republic. Bob had also been the first head of the National Economic Council. In both positions he had played a decisive role in our efforts to restore economic growth and spread its benefits to more Americans, to prevent and contain financial crisis abroad, and to modernize the international financial system to deal with a global economy in which more than one trillion dollars crossed national borders every day.
  • Bill Clinton, My Life (2004), p. 857

• Bill Clinton and his two treasury secretary enablers, Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, instituted a system of unregulated capitalism that has resulted in financial anarchy. This anarchic form of capitalism, where everything, including human beings and the natural world, is a commodity to exploit until exhaustion or collapse, is justified by identity politics. It is sold as “enlightened liberalism” as opposed to the old pro-union class politics that saw the Democrats heed the voices of the working class. Financial anarchy and short-term plunder have destroyed long-term financial and political stability. It has also pushed the human species, along with most other species, closer and closer towards extinction.
  • Chris Hedges, Papering Over the Rot. Scheerpost, February 1, 2021

• Robert Rubin stands out as the poster child for the revolving door that exists between Wall Street and Washington. Rubin started his career by making a fortune at Goldman Sachs, where he worked for twenty-six years, including two years as its co-chairman. In 1993, President Clinton appointed him head of the National Economic Council, and in 1995 he became treasury secretary. While in government he spearheaded financial deregulation, including the repeal of Glass-Steagall. He also prevented the regulation of derivatives. In 1999, Rubin returned to Wall Street, and after brokering a deal with Republicans to legalize the $70 billion merger between Citicorp and Travelers Group, he was hired by the newly formed Citigroup and received about $15 million a year for his services. Less than a decade later-a decade in which Rubin earned more than $126 million at Citigroup-taxpayers bailed out his megabank because of the enormous risks Rubin and others encouraged it to take. In 2010, the bipartisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) voted unanimously to refer Rubin to the Justice Department for "potential fraud" for misleading investors about Citigroup's exposure to subprime mortgages. When DOJ declined to act, Phil Angelides, chair of the FCIC, said, "It's been a disappointment to me and others that the Justice Department has not pursued the potential wrongdoing by individuals identified in the matters we referred to them. At the very least, they owe the American people the reassurance that they conducted a thorough investigation of individuals who engaged in misconduct." I couldn't agree more.
  • Bernie Sanders Our Revolution (2016)

External links

• Official website of Robert Rubin