The Rubin White House
Obama’s economic team and the shadow of Robert Rubin
A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
Thank you for signing up to TheWeek. You will receive a verification email shortly.
There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again.
“It is testament to the star power of former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin,” said Jackie Calmes in the International Herald Tribune, that Barack Obama’s economic team is “a virtual Rubin constellation.” But just because Obama nominees Timothy Geithner, Larry Summers, and Peter Orszag are “Rubin protégés” doesn’t mean they’ll adhere to “Rubinomics”—"balanced budgets, free trade, and financial deregulation.”
Like Rubin, Geithner and Summers are “Wall Street friendly and moderate on economic issues,” said Brian Wingfield in Forbes online, but today’s economic challenges are different than in the late 1990s, and “Obamanomics isn’t Rubinomics.” Obama wants a deficit-stretching “massive economic stimulus” and higher taxes on the rich “at some point,” and the Rubinites will go along.
Still, being tied to Rubin looks pretty bad at the moment, said Steven Pearlstein in The Washington Post. Rubin is a top board member at the just-bailed-out Citigroup, and given his advocacy for deregulation and Enron, there’s been “surprisingly little damage” to his reputation. But after Citi’s “sweeheart” bailout, Obama would be wise to “leave Rubin out of the mix.””
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
There’s more than one way to be a “Rubinite,” said Ezra Klein in The American Prospect online. One of the criticisms of Rubin is that he was “viscerally sympathetic” to his former investment banking colleagues. But Geithner, Summers, Orszag, and Jason Furman “aren’t Wall Street guys”—they’re mostly “talented civil servants.” And that could make all the difference.
Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.
Sign up to our 10 Things You Need to Know Today newsletter
A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
-
What to know when filing a hurricane insurance claim
The Explainer A step-by-step to figure out what insurance will cover and what else you can do beyond filing a claim
By Becca Stanek Published
-
How fees impact your investment portfolio — and how to save on them
The Explainer Even seemingly small fees can take a big bite out of returns
By Becca Stanek Published
-
Enemy without
Cartoons
By The Week Staff Published