Is the sagacity of age beginning to touch Robert Rubin, formerly (Co-)Chairman of Goldman Sachs, Secretary of the Treasury, and Chairman of Citigroup?
Such an outspoken assessment (see below) by a major establishment figure suggests to me, we are indeed very close to the abyss.
Why is there so little coverage of Portugal's troubles? Am I just reading the wrong papers (websites, rather)?
The party is nearly over, but most of us are still too drunk to realise it - which state of affairs Rubin, a long-time leading "publican" to the "thirsty" American people, calls "the box" below. Now, democrats, like Rubin, who used to "sell" the entitlement binge as necessitated by reason, decency and justice, unveil its true essence: uncontrolled avarice.
The system of greed is coming to an end: an (entitlement-) greedy electorate voting for (power-)greedy politicians that engage and privilege (money-)greedy intermediaries like Goldman Sachs to keep the anti-capitalist system of greed working.
See my posts Capitalism Is Hated Because It Is Strictly Moral and Greed ... .
I take the below directly and in full from Robert Wenzel's post Robert Rubin Warns ...
Former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin's warnings about the economy and debt situation are getting louder and louder. Speaking at CME Group’s Global Financial Leadership Conference in Naples, Fla, he warned that Federal deficits are on an unsustainable trajectory, and large state and local budget gaps must be closed. He also said:
I think the prospects for the United States economy for both the short term and the long term are the most complex and uncertain of my adult lifetime.That obviously creates an extremely difficult decision-making environment for investors, for business people, for policymakers and for our people...
Substantial new deficits could also lead to sudden and unexpected disruptions in market psychology and, following from that, disruptions in the bond market....
He also added that a weaker dollar could lead to dangerous competitive devaluations and that those devaluations could lead to financial chaos, or restrictive trade measures elsewhere in the world. Commodity prices are already increasing as a result and could undermined the development of additional demand, he said, but the most serious problem is that the new program of quantitative easing has heightened existing concern that we might, at some point, monetize our debt to try to inflate our way out of our fiscal problems.
Rubin noted the box the U.S is in given that the politics of deficit reduction are enormously difficult, because the American people do not want tax increases or spending reductions that would affect them.
. . . they are ramping up for Hillary.
Posted by: Bernie Quigley | 02/15/2011 at 02:39 PM