SCOTT SIMON, host:
We just heard political reactions to Mr. Obama's plan from Dan Schorr. So now we go to Wall Street. Our own friend from the world of business, Joe Nocera, joins us. Good morning, Joe.
JOE NOCERA: Good morning, Scott.
SIMON: And what does business think about President-elect Obama's proposals?
NOCERA: Business is a little quarrelous, like everybody else, mainly wondering if it will be enough, if it will do the trick. And you know, the truth is, Scott, throughout history, this is - you know, you just don't know whether a stimulus package is going to do what you hope it will do. And so, you know, this is the first - I mean, really, one way to think about this is this is the first volley of what I suspect will be several volleys once he takes office.
SIMON: The all-time high unemployment numbers that we saw this week, is that the figure that bears watching more than what the market is doing?
NOCERA: Oh, absolutely. The market is - I wouldn't say it's irrelevant, but the market matters so much less at this point than unemployment. I mean, these were the worst numbers since 1945 in terms of yearly job loss, and especially the fact, Scott, that of the 2.5 million jobs that were lost in this past year, 1.9 million came from September on. Gee, do you think the Lehman bankruptcy made a difference?
SIMON: Yeah.
(Soundbite of laughter)
SIMON: Which brings up something that happened last night rather quietly. Robert Rubin, former treasurer secretary under President Clinton, a man who has been regarded as a philosopher and a guru and a source of wisdom, announced that he's resigning from Citigroup. Now, place him in this current crisis, if you could.
NOCERA: Well, you know, it's a little like Greenspan. He was lauded as ahero when he was a secretary of the treasury for keeping the economy turbo-charged and sort of taking care of the Asian crisis and the Mexican peso crisis, which he did, actually, quite brilliantly.
But in the time that he has been at Citigroup, his reputation has really been besmirched for two reasons. First of all, it seems clear in retrospect that he helped encourage Citigroup to become a bigger risk-taking institution, and that helped lead it to the troubles that it's in today. Second of all, he took $150 million in that time and has basically claimed no responsibility for what happened to Citi, you know. And finally, it does appear in retrospect that government officials at the tail end of the Clinton administration and the beginning of the Bush administration, you know, didn't do enough regulatorily to put the brakes on derivatives and other securities that have turned out to haunt us.
SIMON: And Mr. Rubin is, it must be said, considered what amounts to the patron of several of president-elect Obama's top financial advisers.
NOCERA: Well - well, that is true, although Larry Summers, in particular, seems to have - not have the same tarnish as Mr. Rubin. I suspect that's partly because when he went back into private life he became, you know, president of Harvard and more or less remained a public intellectual as opposed to somebody who was really engaged in the business of financial services.
SIMON: Joe Nocera writes the Talking Business column for the New York Times, which I believe appears in the paper today.
NOCERA: It most certainly does, Scott.
SIMON: What a coincidence! Joe joins us from the studios of the Radio Foundation in New York. Thanks so much, Joe.
NOCERA: Thanks for having me, Scott.