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Wall Street Goes to Washington
by Portfolio Staff
December 2008 Issue
December 2008 Issue
Financiers before Pete Peterson have tried to influence public policy—with mixed grades.
Financial meltdown. Government spending gone wild. But Pete Peterson is betting $1 billion he can close the federal deficit. Read More
| Financier | Efforts | Final Grade |
| Averell Harriman | Helped create Brown Brothers Harriman; then became U.S. commerce secretary, New York governor, and ambassador to the U.S.S.R. But despite Truman’s endorsement, he lost bids for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1952 and 1956. | B |
| Douglas Dillon | Scion of a rich Wall Street family; chairman of Dillon Read. In a display of bipartisanship, John F. Kennedy appointed Dillon, a Republican, as Treasury secretary. His policies are credited with helping to foster the long economic expansion of the 1960s. | A- |
| William Simon | Left Salomon Brothers to assume the challenging posts of energy czar during the Arab oil embargo and Treasury secretary during the 1974–75 recession. Best known in later years as a hard-charging conservative. | B- |
| Felix Rohatyn | Lazard Frères investment banker known as the man who saved New York from bankruptcy in the 1970s. He restructured the city’s debt as head of the quasi-governmental Municipal Assistance Corp. | A- |
| Robert Rubin | Former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs who became one of Clinton’s Treasury secretaries. Lauded for soothing Wall Street’s nerves through several crises. But his star may be dimming, as critics charge that his policies helped lay the foundation for the current meltdown. | A- |
| Hank Paulson | Former C.E.O. of Goldman Sachs who was a disciple of free markets. Now, to stem economic devastation as Bush’s Treasury secretary, he’s overseeing government intervention in the financial system that some say borders on socialism. | Incomplete |
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