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Pastimes : Clown-Free Zone... sorry, no clowns allowed
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To: Les H who wrote (179660)7/14/2002 9:54:02 AM
From: Les H  Read Replies (2) of 436258
 
Clinton's Wall Street

nypost.com

excerpt:

Less attention has been paid to Robert Rubin's call to Peter Fisher, the Treasury undersecretary who is the administration's point man on financial markets. While the call was not a crime or even a civil offense, it was, in an important way, the most telling event in all the recent financial fiascoes.

Rubin, Treasury secretary from 1995 to 1999, is now a director of the Citigroup financial conglomerate. He is the ne plus ultra of eminent Clintonians. After Alan Greenspan, he is the most respected figure in international financial markets.

Did Rubin, whose firm is a major lender to Enron, ask Fisher for the same thing that Enron's Kenneth Lay asked Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill for, a bailout, some form of government financing? No - the request was both more subtle and potentially more damaging to the good health of America's markets.

WHAT Rubin asked for, by all accounts, was for Fisher to call the debt rating agencies and ask them to find an "alternative" to a downgrade of Enron's securities. This was an astounding request. The rating agencies are meant to be neutral arbiters of the financial strength of the entities they rate. Rubin's request was akin to the owner of a team faced with playoff elimination asking the league commissioner to get the referees to call the next game so that the owner's team doesn't lose.
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