Robert Rubin
Robert Rubin in May 1999
5th Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations Serving alongside: Carla Anderson Hills
Incumbent
Assumed office 2007
President	Richard N. Haass
Preceded by	Peter George Peterson
70th United States Secretary of the Treasury
In office January 11, 1995 – July 2, 1999
President	Bill Clinton
Preceded by	Lloyd Bentsen
Succeeded by	Lawrence Summers
1st Director of the National Economic Council
In office 1993–1995
President	Bill Clinton
Succeeded by	Laura Tyson
12th Chairman of Citigroup
In office November 4 – December 11, 2007
Preceded by	Charles Prince
Succeeded by	Win Bischoff
Personal details
Born	(1938-08-29) August 29, 1938 (age 73) New York City
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Judith Oxenberg Rubin
Children	James Rubin Philip Rubin
Alma mater	Harvard College (A.B.) Yale Law School (LL.B.) London School of Economics
Profession	Banker, economist, attorney
Religion	Judaism
Signature

Robert Edward Rubin (born August 29, 1938) served as the 70th United States Secretary of the Treasury during both the first and second Clinton administrations. Before his government service, he spent 26 years at Goldman Sachs eventually serving as a member of the Board, and Co-Chairman from 1990-1992. His most prominent post-government role was as Director and Senior Counselor of Citigroup, where he performed ongoing advisory and representational roles for the firm.^[1] From November to December 2007, he served temporarily as Chairman of Citigroup^[2][3] and resigned from the company on January 9, 2009. He received more than $126 million in cash and stock during his tenure at Citigroup.^[4]

He is currently engaged actively as a founder of The Hamilton Project, an economic policy think tank which produces research and proposals on how to create a growing economy that benefits more Americans.^[3] He is Co-Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations and sits on the board of the Harvard Corporation, Harvard University’s executive board. Mr. Rubin is chairman of the board of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, the nation’s leading community development support organization, and he serves on the Board of Trustees of Mount Sinai-NYU Health. He also serves as Counselor at Centerview Partners, an investment banking advisory firm based in New York City.

Education and background[link]

Born in New York City, Rubin moved to Miami Beach, Florida, at an early age and graduated from Miami Beach High School. He was a member of Boy Scout Troop 35, sponsored by the American Legion, and received the rank of Eagle Scout. In 1960, Rubin graduated with an A.B. summa cum laude in economics from Harvard College.^[3] He then attended Harvard Law School for three days before leaving to see the world.^[5] He later attended the London School of Economics after graduation and received an LL.B. from Yale Law School in 1964.^[3]

Rubin began his career as an attorney at the firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton in New York City. He joined Goldman Sachs in 1966 as an associate in the risk arbitrage department.^[5] Rubin proved his skills at the intricate art of investing his firm's capital in high-reward arbitrage opportunities and became a general partner in 1971. He joined the management committee in 1980 along with fellow Democrat Jon Corzine, later a U.S. senator and governor of New Jersey. Rubin was Vice Chairman and Co-Chief Operating Officer from 1987 to 1990. From the end of 1990 to 1992, Rubin served as Co-Chairman and Co-Senior Partner along with Stephen Friedman.

Rubin has been awarded honorary degrees from several prestigious universities, including Harvard University, Yale University, Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania, New York University and the University of Miami.

Clinton administration[link]

From January 20, 1993, to January 10, 1995, Robert Rubin served in the White House as Assistant to the President for Economic Policy. In that capacity, he directed the National Economic Council, which Bill Clinton created after winning the presidency.

The National Economic Council, or NEC, enabled the White House to coordinate closely the workings of the Cabinet departments and agencies on policies ranging from budget and tax to international trade and alleviating poverty. The NEC coordinated policy recommendations going into the President’s office, and monitored implementation of the decisions that came out.^[3]

Robert Strauss, former U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union, credited Rubin with making the system work. "He's surely the only man or woman in America that I know who could make the NEC succeed," Strauss said in 1994. "Anyone else would have been a disruptive force, and the council wouldn't have worked."^[6]

1990s global financial crisis[link]

In January 1995, one year after the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and immediately after Rubin was sworn in as Secretary of Treasury, Mexico was suffering through a financial crisis that threatened to result in it defaulting on its foreign obligations. President Bill Clinton, with the advice of Secretary Rubin and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, provided $20 billion in US loan guarantees to the Mexican government through the Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF).

In 1997 and 1998, Treasury Secretary Rubin, Deputy Secretary Lawrence Summers, and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan worked with the International Monetary Fund and others to effectively combat and contain financial crises in Russian, Asian, and Latin American financial markets. In its February 15, 1999, edition, Time Magazine dubbed the three policymakers "The Committee to Save the World."^[7]

Mr. Rubin was succeeded on July 1, 1999, as Treasury Secretary by his deputy, Lawrence H. Summers.

Economic record and the 2008 global financial crisis[link]

Upon Rubin's retirement, Clinton called him the "greatest secretary of the Treasury since Alexander Hamilton". On April 18, 2010, in an interview on ABC’s This Week program, Clinton said Rubin was wrong in the advice he gave him not to regulate derivatives.^[8] However, following the interview Clinton retracted those statements and said that in his mind he received excellent advice on the economy and the financial system from Rubin and others.^[9]

"During his tenure as Treasury Secretary", Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) said, "Bob was an ideal public servant who put policy before politics."^[10]

In 1997, Rubin and Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan strongly opposed giving the Commodity Futures Trading Commission oversight of over-the-counter credit derivatives when this was proposed by Brooksley Born, the head of the CFTC. Rubin's role was highlighted in a Public Broadcasting Service Frontline report, "The Warning".^[11] Over-the-counter credit derivatives were eventually excluded from regulation by the CFTC by the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. According to the Frontline documentary, they played a key role in the 2008 financial crisis.

Arthur Levitt Jr., a former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, has said in explaining Rubin's strong opposition to the regulations proposed by Born that Greenspan and Rubin were "...joined at the hip on this. They were certainly very fiercely opposed to this and persuaded me that this would cause chaos."^[12] However, in Rubin’s autobiography, he notes that he believed derivatives could pose significant problems and that many people who used derivatives did not fully understand the risks they were taking.^[13]

Rubin and his deputy Lawrence Summers also steered through the 1999 repeal of the Glass–Steagall Act (1933), which had separated investment banking from the retail side. It allowed the banks to develop and sell the mortgage-backed instruments that became a principal factor in the financial collapse. In September 2011, the UK Independent Commission on Banking released a report in which it recommended a separation of investment and retail banking to prevent a repeat of the 2008 crisis.^{[citation needed]}

In a December 2009 Newsweek article, Rubin described the extraordinary combination of circumstances that led to the global financial crisis, including market and credit excesses, low interest rates, massive increase in the use of complex derivatives, misguided AAA ratings, stagnant median real wages, abusive mortgage practices, and the over-leveraging of financial institutions, among many other factors. In the article, Rubin advocates for the reform of the financial system in order to better protect against systemic risk and devastating crises in the future. Rubin says "the market-based model must be combined with strong and effective government, nationally and transnationally, to deal with critical challenges that markets won't adequately address."^[14]

On January 9, 2009, Citigroup announced that Rubin had resigned as a senior adviser and would not seek re-election as a director of the corporation.^[15] Press reports noted that Rubin had drawn criticism for his role in the bank's recent problems that drove it to seek federal assistance.^[16]

Post-political career[link]

Upon leaving the Clinton administration, Rubin joined the Board of The Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), the nation’s leading community development support organization as Chairman.

Reflecting on his decision to join an institution devoted to bringing economic activity to neglected areas of the country, the Chicago Tribune said the following in an editorial: "Even before he became Bill Clinton's treasury secretary, during his days as a high-powered Wall Street executive, Rubin was passionate about fostering business investment as the way to fight poverty in depressed city and rural areas. That made him somewhat unusual among Democrats, who generally emphasized government anti-poverty programs."^[17]

In 1999, affirming his career-long interest in markets, Rubin joined Citigroup as a board member and as a participant "in strategic managerial and operational matters of the Company, but [...] no line responsibilities."^[18] The Wall Street Journal called this mix of oversight and management responsibilities "murky."^[18] In an interview with the Journal, Rubin said: "I think I've been a very constructive part of the Citigoup environment."^[18] Separately, the Journal noted that Citigroup shareholders have suffered losses of more than 70 percent since Rubin joined the firm and that he encouraged changes that led the firm to the brink of collapse.^[18] In December 2008, investors filed a lawsuit contending that Citigroup executives, including Rubin, sold shares at inflated prices while concealing the firm’s risks. A Citigroup spokesman said the lawsuit was without merit.^[19]

On January 8, 2001, he was presented with the Presidential Citizens Medal by President Clinton.

On July 1, 2002, Rubin became a member of Harvard Corporation, the executive governing board of Harvard University. This happened one year after he had received an honorary doctoral degree from the same university.^[20]

Rubin has written a memoir, In an Uncertain World: Tough Choices from Wall Street to Washington (ISBN 978-0-375-50585-0), co-written by Jacob Weisberg. It was a New York Times bestseller as well as one of Business Week's ten best business books of 2003.^[3]

Rubin is a member of the Africa Progress Panel (APP), an independent authority on Africa launched in April 2007 to focus world leaders' attention on delivering their commitments to the continent. The Panel launched a major report in London on Monday June 16, 2008, entitled Africa's Development: Promises and Prospects.^[21]

Rubin has been touted as a possible appointee to a cabinet post for President Barack Obama. Rubin, alongside Austan Goolsbee and Paul Volcker, is one of Obama's economic advisers.^[22]

Family[link]

Rubin is married to Judith Oxenberg Rubin, who served as the New York City Commissioner of Protocol for four years under Mayor David Dinkins. The Rubins have two grown sons, James (not to be confused with the former diplomat and journalist James Rubin who served under President Clinton) and Philip.^[23]

Positions held[link]

During his time in the private sector, Rubin has served on the board of directors of the New York Stock Exchange, the Ford Motor Company, Citigroup, the Harvard Corporation, the New York Futures Exchange, the New York City Partnership and the Center for National Policy. He has also served on the board of trustees of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Mt. Sinai Hospital and Medical School, the President's Advisory Committee for Trade Negotiations, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Market Oversight and Financial Services Advisory Committee, the Mayor of New York's Council of Economic Advisors and the Governor's Council on Fiscal and Economic Priorities for the State of New York. He has been co-chairman of the board of directors of the Council on Foreign Relations since June 2007. On November 4, 2007, he became the Chairman of Citigroup and on January 9, 2009 he resigned from the position of Senior Counselor at Citigroup and announced he would not stand for re-election to the board.

Compensation[link]

Robert Rubin received over $17,000,000 in compensation from Citigroup and a further $33,000,000 in stock options as of 2008.^[24]

Criticism[link]

Rubin sparked controversy in 2001 when he contacted an acquaintance at the U.S. Treasury Department and asked if the department could convince bond-rating agencies not to downgrade the corporate debt of Enron, a debtor of Citigroup. The Treasury official refused. A subsequent congressional staff investigation cleared Rubin of any wrongdoing.^[25]

Journalist Robert Scheer, in his book The Great American Stickup, claims the repeal of the Glass–Steagall Act was a key factor in the 2008 financial crisis.^{[page needed]} Enacted just after the 1930s great depression, the Glass–Steagall Act separated commercial and investment banking. The law was repealed by Congress in 1999 during the Clinton presidency, while Rubin was Treasury Secretary. President Obama's current banking system proposals,^{[dated info]} appear to be a return to these former principles although there is no talk of reinstating Glass–Steagall.^[26]

Sources[link]

• The White House - Office of the Press Secretary

References[link]

• Clinton, Bill (2005). My Life. Vintage. ISBN 1-4000-3003-X.
• Rubin, Robert (2003). In An Uncertain World. Random House. ISBN 978-0-375-50585-0
• Crony-Capitalists Fiddle While Main Street Burns: Crashing Citigroup - accessed 12-03-07

External links[link]

• Profile at Council on Foreign Relations
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Robert Rubin on Charlie Rose
• Robert Rubin at the Internet Movie Database
• Works by or about Robert Rubin in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Robert Rubin collected news and commentary at Forbes
• Robert Rubin collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• Robert Rubin collected news and commentary at The Wall Street Journal
• The Warning, PBS Frontline, 2009

• Speech at the Aspen Institute
• Interview with the BBC
• Op-Ed for The Wall Street Journal
• Op-Ed for the Financial Times
• Op-Ed for the FT Magazine
• Op-Ed for The Korea Times
• Op-Ed for Newsweek
• Panel Discussion with The Washington Post

v t e United States Secretaries of the Treasury Hamilton Wolcott Dexter Gallatin Campbell Dallas Crawford Rush Ingham McLane Duane Taney Woodbury Ewing Forward Spencer Bibb Walker Meredith Corwin Guthrie Cobb Thomas Dix Chase Fessenden McCulloch Boutwell Richardson Bristow Morrill Sherman Windom Folger Gresham McCulloch Manning Fairchild Windom Foster Carlisle Gage Shaw Cortelyou MacVeagh McAdoo Glass Houston Mellon Mills Woodin Morgenthau Vinson Snyder Humphrey Anderson Dillon Fowler Barr Kennedy Connally Shultz Simon Blumenthal Miller Regan Baker Brady Bentsen Rubin Summers O'Neill Snow Paulson Geithner

v t e Cabinet of President Bill Clinton (1993–2001)   Cabinet Secretary of State Warren Christopher (1993 – 1997) Madeleine Albright (1997 – 2001) Secretary of the Treasury Lloyd Bentsen (1993 – 1994) Robert Rubin (1995 – 1999) Lawrence Summers (1999 – 2001) Secretary of Defense Les Aspin (1993 – 1994) William Perry (1994 – 1997) William Cohen (1997 – 2001) Attorney General Janet Reno (1993 – 2001) Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt (1993 – 2001) Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy (1993 – 1994) Dan Glickman (1995 – 2001) Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown (1993 – 1996) Mickey Kantor (1996 – 1997) William Daley (1997 – 2000) Norman Mineta (2000 – 2001) Secretary of Labor Robert Reich (1993 – 1997) Alexis Herman (1997 – 2001) Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala (1993 – 2001) Secretary of Education Richard Riley (1993 – 2001) Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry Cisneros (1993 – 1997) Andrew Cuomo (1997 – 2001) Secretary of Transportation Federico Peña (1993 – 1997) Rodney Slater (1997 – 2001) Secretary of Energy Hazel O'Leary (1993 – 1997) Federico Peña (1997 – 1998) Bill Richardson (1998 – 2001) Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jesse Brown (1993 – 1997) Togo West (1998 – 2000) Hershel Gober* (2000 – 2001) acting secretary.   Cabinet-level Vice President Al Gore (1993 – 2001) White House Chief of Staff Mack McLarty (1993 – 1994) Leon Panetta (1994 – 1997) Erskine Bowles (1997 – 1998) John Podesta (1998 – 2001) Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency Carol Browner (1993 – 2001) Ambassador to the United Nations Madeleine Korbel Albright (1993 – 1997) Bill Richardson (1997 – 1998) Richard Holbrooke (1999 – 2001) Director of the Office of Management and Budget Leon Panetta (1993 – 1994) Alice Rivlin (1994 – 1996) Franklin Raines (1996 – 1998) Jacob Lew (1998 – 2001) Director of National Drug Control Policy Lee Brown (1993 – 1995) Barry McCaffrey (1996 – 2001) Trade Representative Mickey Kantor (1993 – 1997) Charlene Barshefsky (1997 – 2001) Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency James Lee Witt (1993 – 2001)* Director of Central Intelligence John Deutch (1995 – 1996) George Tenet (1997–2001) Administrator of the Small Business Administration Erskine Bowles (1993 - 1994) Philip Lader (1994 – 1997) Aída Álvarez (1997–2001) took office in 1993, raised to cabinet-rank in 1996

Charlie Rose
Rose in May 2010
Born	Charles Peete Rose, Jr. (1942-01-05) January 5, 1942 (age 70) Henderson, North Carolina, U.S.
Education	Duke University B.A. (1964) Duke University J.D. (1968)
Occupation	Talk show host Journalist
Years active	1972–present
Notable credit(s)	Charlie Rose, 60 Minutes II, 60 Minutes, CBS News Nightwatch, CBS This Morning
Website
http://www.charlierose.com/

Charles Peete "Charlie" Rose, Jr. (born January 5, 1942)^[1] is an American television talk show host and journalist. Since 1991 he has hosted Charlie Rose, an interview show distributed nationally by PBS since 1993. He has also co-anchored CBS This Morning since January 2012. Rose, along with Lara Logan, has hosted the revived CBS classic Person to Person, a news program during which celebrities are interviewed in their homes, originally hosted from 1953 to 1961 by Edward R. Murrow.^[2]

Early life[link]

Rose was born in Henderson, North Carolina, the only child^[3] of Margaret Frazier and Charles Peete Rose, Sr., tobacco farmers who owned a country store.^[4][5] As a child, Rose lived above his parents' store in Henderson and helped out with the family business from age seven.^[6] Rose admitted in a Fresh Dialogues interview that as a child his insatiable curiosity was constantly getting him in trouble.^[7] A high school basketball star, Rose entered Duke University intending to pursue a degree with a pre-med track, but an internship in the office of Democratic North Carolina Senator B. Everett Jordan got him interested in politics.^[8] Rose graduated in 1964 with a bachelor's degree in history. At Duke, he was a member of the Kappa Alpha Order fraternity. He earned a Juris Doctor from the Duke University School of Law in 1968.^[6] He met his wife, Mary (née King), while attending Duke.^[3][4]

Career[link]

After his wife was hired by the BBC (in New York), Rose handled some assignments for the BBC on a freelance basis. In 1972, while continuing to work at Bankers Trust, he landed a job as a weekend reporter for WPIX-TV. His break came in 1974, after Bill Moyers hired Rose as managing editor for the PBS series Bill Moyers' International Report. In 1975, Moyers named Rose executive producer of Bill Moyers Journal. Rose soon began appearing on camera. "A Conversation with Jimmy Carter," one installment of Moyers's series U.S.A.: People and Politics, won a 1976 Peabody Award. Rose worked at several networks honing his interview skills until KXAS-TV in Dallas-Fort Worth hired him as program manager and gave him the late-night time slot that would become the Charlie Rose show.

Rose worked for CBS News (1984–1990) as the anchor of CBS News Nightwatch, the network's first late-night news broadcast. The Nightwatch broadcast of Rose's interview with Charles Manson won an Emmy Award in 1987.^[4] In 1990, Rose left CBS to serve as anchor of Personalities, a syndicated program produced by Fox Broadcasting Company, but he got out of his contract after six weeks because of the tabloid-style content of the show. Charlie Rose premiered on PBS station Thirteen/WNET on September 30, 1991, and has been nationally syndicated since January 1993. In 1994, Rose moved the show to a studio owned by Bloomberg Television, which allowed for improved satellite interviewing.^[9]

Rose was a correspondent for 60 Minutes II^[10] from its inception in January 1999 until its cancellation in September 2005, and was later named a correspondent on 60 Minutes.^[11]

Rose was a member of the board of directors of Citadel Broadcasting Corporation from 2003 to 2009.^[3] In May 2010, Charlie Rose delivered the commencement address at North Carolina State University.

On November 15, 2011, it was announced that Rose would return to CBS to help anchor CBS This Morning, replacing The Early Show, commencing January 9, 2012, along with co-anchors Erica Hill and Gayle King.

Cameo appearances[link]

Rose has appeared as himself in the 1998 film Primary Colors,^[12] in a 2000 episode of The Simpsons^[13] and in the 2008 movie Elegy.^[14] He and his show were also used in the Wes Anderson film The Royal Tenenbaums. He also appears as himself in the 2011 George Clooney directed film, The Ides of March.

[edit] Accusations of conflict of interest

While hosting the 2002 Coca-Cola Company shareholders' meeting, Rose said "few companies are able to connect as completely with consumers in the way that Coca-Cola is. It is a privilege to be associated with [The Coca-Cola family] ... This is the business of Coca-Cola: being part of a family, being worldwide, doing well and doing good at the same time."^[15] Afterward, Coca-Cola agreed to become what Rose called "a leading underwriter" of The Charlie Rose Show, paying "six or possibly seven figures."^[16] Even the Charlie Rose mugs used on his PBS show feature a Coca-Cola logo on one side.^[17][18] Although CBS News policy bars correspondents from doing commercials and product endorsements, the Washington Post reported CBS was "comfortable" with Rose's actions. Rose insists he "would never do a story on 60 Minutes II about anybody who underwrites my PBS show."^[16]

[edit] Quiet influence

The New York Times reported that Rose encouraged a discussion between the leaders of NBC and Fox, that led eventually to a mutual reduction in ad hominem attacks between Keith Olbermann and Bill O'Reilly on their respective news programs.^[19]

Rose has attended several Bilderberg Group conference meetings, including meetings held in the United States in 2008;^[20] Spain in 2010;^[21] and Switzerland in 2011.^[22] These unofficial conferences hold guests from North America and Western Europe, most of whom are political leaders and businessmen. Details of meetings are closed off to the public and strictly invitation-only, and critics^[who?] speculate the controversial nature of these meetings of highly influential people. Accusations from conspiracy theorists against The Charlie Rose show claim that it has become the US media outlet for Bilderberg.^{[23][unreliable source?]}

Personal life[link]

Rose's twelve-year marriage to Mary Rose (née King) ended in divorce in 1980. Mary is the sister-in-law of Morgan Stanley Chairman John J. Mack. Since 1993, his companion has been socialite and chairman of the New York City Planning Commission and director of the city department of planning Amanda Burden, a stepdaughter of CBS founder William S. Paley.^[24]

On March 29, 2006, after experiencing shortness of breath in Syria, Rose was flown to Paris and underwent surgery for mitral valve repair in the Georges-Pompidou European Hospital. His surgery was performed under the supervision of Alain F. Carpentier, a pioneer of the procedure.^[25] Rose returned to the air on June 12, 2006, with Bill Moyers and Yvette Vega (the show's executive producer), to discuss his surgery and recuperation.

In a 2009 Fresh Dialogues interview, Rose described his life as "great and glorious."^[7] He added, '"I get up every morning with a new adventure. The adventure is fueled by interesting people. I get a chance to control my own destiny. I do something that is immediately either appreciated or not. I get feedback."

Rose owns a 575-acre (2.33 km²) farm in Oxford, North Carolina, an apartment overlooking Central Park in New York City, a beach house in Bellport, New York, an apartment in Washington D.C.^[3] and an apartment in Paris, France.

References[link]

External links[link]

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (March 2012)

• Charlie Rose Official website of his eponymous show
• Charlie Rose official channel on YouTube
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Charlie Rose at the Internet Movie Database
• Charlie Rose collected news and commentary at the Los Angeles Times
• Charlie Rose collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• Charlie Rose at the Notable Names Database
• Charlie Rose shows on Hulu
• celebritynetworth.com, Celebrity Net Worth, Charlie Rose
• Why Business Loves Charlie Rose David A. Kaplan, Fortune, September 28, 2009