The response to the mortgage security mess is now winding its way through the government sausage factory and the next level of operational leadership is being revealed. 
This morning, Hank Paulson announced that Neel Kashkari will oversee the $700B program –
The Treasury Department plans to tap Neel Kashkari, an assistant secretary of international affairs and a former Goldman Sachs banker, to oversee the government’s $700 billion financial rescue program, sources familiar with the situation said yesterday.Kashkari has been a close adviser to Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. on the credit crisis and helped draft the legislation for the massive rescue plan. He is expected to run the program on an interim basis until the Treasury finds a permanent head, according to sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment. Kashkari’s replacement would stay on after the next administration takes office in January.
At the tender age of 35, Neel is being handed quite a shopping budget. Then again, often the only thing bigger than a government amplified problem is the government created solution.
The WSJ credits Neel with being a key man behind the scenes who crafted much of the “Paulson Plan” –
[Neel] spent much of his tenure at Treasury helping Mr. Paulson stem the fallout from the housing correction. He helped implement an alliance of mortgage-industry players who joined last year to help homeowners in danger of foreclosure.
Mr. Kashkari was part of the Treasury team that negotiated the asset-repurchase program with Congress, putting in marathon sessions along with Robert Hoyt, Treasury’s general counsel, and Kevin Fromer, the head of legislative affairs. He was also one of the originators of the plan. Last year, he and Phillip Swagel, assistant secretary for economic policy, crafted a proposal called “break the glass” — referring to the emergency nature of using such a tool — which envisioned Treasury buying bad loans and other assets.
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p>Neel’s official bio is up on Treasury’s website and makes for interesting reading that crosses paths with many mutineers –
…Prior to joining the Treasury Department, Mr. Kashkari was a Vice President at Goldman, Sachs & Co. in San Francisco, where he led Goldman’s IT Security Investment Banking practice, advising public and private companies on mergers and acquisitions and financial transactions. Prior to his career in finance, Mr. Kashkari was a R&D Principal Investigator at TRW in Redondo Beach, California where he developed technology for NASA space science missions such as the James Webb Space Telescope.Originally from Stow, Ohio, Mr. Kashkari graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Engineering. He also received an M.B.A. in Finance from the Wharton School. Mr. Kashkari and his wife reside in Maryland.
Googling around, I found a CSPAN clip of Mr Kashkari keynoting an AEI-sponsored event last month on alternatives to Fannie-Mae / Freddie-Mac for mortgage financing. Neel gets introduced about 9:30 into the clip and finally starts speaking around 12 min into it (ch 3).
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Yep, he does bear an eery resemblance to his 62 yr old boss. |
In the clip, Neel describes how a “covered bond” market could be created in the US based in large part on a similar, successful system deployed in the Netherlands and how it differs from our current system. One particularly attractive aspect would be avoidance of the government backstops which I personally hold responsible for the necessity and size of the $700B bail out (although not necessarily the bubble itself).
Regardless of whether you agree with his policy recommendation, Neel comes across as a very bright, articulate technocrat who crisply enumerates where we stand, where he wants to take us, and why. The Q&A (particularly ch13 / Q2) shows him sticking to his guns and handling prickly interrogation with grace and style.
But what good would any of this be if he didn’t make his dad proud?
Feeling like he wanted a change of pace, and wanting to learn more about finance, Kashkari attended Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and earned his master’s degree in 1997, said Neel’s father Chaman Kashkari.
“The whole idea was to combine engineering with finance,” said Chaman Kashkari. “He told me the country needed people who have a good concept of engineering and a good concept of finance.”
…Chaman Kashkari said he came to this country from Kashmir, India, before his son was born.
“This country has given to us and given a lot,” he said. “I’m very happy that [Neel] can do something extra special. I’m very happy that Stow has the environment to produce people who do something special.”
Homey’s ditched rockets of one sort for quite a different beast. Either way, it’ll be the ride of his life. 
UPDATE: Longtime mutineer KXB points us at this NPR Profile of Kashkari via the News tab.
“Transparency is an enemy to both big businesses that aren’t honest or government bureaucracies that are ineffective.”
So then we just don’t get transparency 🙂 simple, problem solved.
I thought I was the only one crushing on Kashkari until I saw the following post on New York mag: http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2008/10/fyi_we_are_so_going_to_be_obse.html
FYI We Are So Going to Be Obsessed With Neel Kashkari
Remember when John McCain plucked Sarah Palin out of the tundra obscurity and made her his running mate, and then everybody was immediately like, “but we don’t know anything about her!” And then after like two days suddenly we knew more about her and her family than we ever wanted to know? Well, that’s basically what happened this week with Neel Kashkari, the new interim assistant Treasury secretary who was appointed by Hank Paulson. Paulson chose Kashkari to head the Office of Financial Stability, which basically means he’s going to handle the congressionally approved bailout and figure out how to spend that $700 billion dollars. But nobody knew this Paulson protégé because he had been quietly working for Paulson on the crisis at the Treasury, and before that he was a mere V.P. at Goldman Sachs. So then the media panicked (the public was obviously reassured by his efficient haircut and confident eyebrows), and we learned all sorts of things about him in a short period of time. For example:
• He “lives in the pleasant Washington, D.C. suburb with wife, Minal, 32, and their enormous brown shaggy Newfoundland dog, Winslow  named after former Browns star tight end Kellen Winslow.” [NYP] • Prior to his career in finance, Mr. Kashkari was a R&D Principal Investigator at TRW in Redondo Beach, California, where he developed technology for NASA space-science missions such as the James Webb Space Telescope. [Treas.Gov] • He grew up in Stow, Ohio, an Akron suburb. His mom and dad are a retired pathologist and an award-winning engineer, respectively. Kashkari himself studied engineering at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. [WSJ] • Last year, he and Phillip Swagel, assistant secretary for economic policy, crafted a “break the glass†proposal  an emergency tool that envisioned the Treasury buying bad loans and other assets. [Muckety] • He likes AC/DC and Rush. [Gawker] • His family is from Srinagar in Kashmir, where there was once a neighborhood named after the Kashkari clan. People in the area still remember his grandfather Sudarsan, but the neighborhood was dismantled in 2000 to make way for a new bridge. [Indian Express]
See how that works? It moves so quickly from useful knowledge to bizarre trivia.
6 · Manju said
Learn some English. i thought desis were supposed to be spelling bee champs and good at English.
They are very accesible. Losing Talent.
once you learn how to speak properly, then come around and start twisting facts. Sheesh.
103 · Brown said
Brown:
Your right. Mispellings are unacceptible, even if there unnoticable or just an ocassional occurence. But I do do this alot, so your criticism is definitally constructive.