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Posts Tagged ‘CNBC Squawkbox’

Mensch:

Noun, informal. A decent, upright, mature and responsible person.

Schlemiel:

Noun, slang. An awkward, clumsy, or unlucky person whose endeavors tend to fail; a loser.

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Mensch of the Week:

Robert Rubin

Co-chair, Council on Foreign Relations & Former U.S. Treasury Secretary

Earlier this month, Robert Rubin spoke to CNBC about a comment made by Sandy Weill, his former colleague at Citigroup (NYSE: C). Mr. Weill said, in essence, that it would be wise for the U.S. government to split up financial institutions that are “too big to fail.”

Any matter that involves public and private interaction tends to be complex, not to mention controversial. Though many have railed against the “cozy” relationship between government and commercial entities, the interdependence of these two groups doesn’t always mean one side understands the other. Maybe the economic and regulatory problems highlighted by the Great Recession are just as much a product of this lack of understanding as they are of government/Wall Street cronyism?

Luckily, there are people like Robert Rubin, who have a depth of experience on both sides of the public/private divide. Mr. Rubin spent years as an executive with Goldman Sachs and later Citigroup, but also served as the Treasury Secretary during the Clinton years. Such a resume affords him a unique insight into the complex world of financial regulation. Read the rest of this entry »