As reported by the Star Tribune, Citigroup director and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin was the keynote speaker at the 18th Annual Corporate Counsel Symposium, a Dorsey-sponsored in-house counsel event featuring panel discussions and presentations on a wide range of legal topics.
In his address, Rubin discussed various challenges to the U.S. financial system, including the issues of subprime lending, consumer confidence and dollar valuation. He suggested that Citigroup and other major U.S. banks are not imperiled by problems in the subprime debt market, and that the issue of subprime lending defaults, while serious, was not the principal challenge to the U.S. economy. Instead, Rubin pointed to consumer spending as the benchmark, suggesting that if consumers pull back on spending, a recession could follow. "I think the probability is greater that we'll have a soft landing [no recession] than not," he said.
"Rubin: Banks will be OK" was published by the Star Tribune, October 24, 2007.