Dean Baker notices the following bit of self-admitted corruption in a New York Times article on former Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin:
Mr. Rubin encouraged Goldman to move into more treacherous markets like proprietary trading and commodities trading. Even so, he now says he was always concerned about the dangers posed by risky futures and derivatives trades, having seen how the pell-mell use of futures contracts exacerbated the 1987 stock market crash.
Shortly before leaving Goldman to head up President Clinton’s National Economic Council, Mr. Rubin says, he met with Richard B. Fisher, the chairman of Morgan Stanley, to discuss the idea of imposing stricter margin requirements on futures trading. Mr. Rubin says the idea died after the Chicago Board of Trade told him “we will make sure Goldman Sachs never trades another future on the C.B.O.T. if this went ahead.”
Bob Rubin just said that he changed his recommendations policy for the benefit of his company in has capacity as head of the National Economic Council. This is completely corrupt, and he is freely admitting it.
Where is one of Bush’s DoJ political vendettas when you need them?