Monday 6 October 2008

Indian-American given job of saving Wall Street

A 35-year old Indian-American whiz whose parents migrated from Jammu and Kashmir is being entrusted with task of rescuing Wall Street, the US economy -- and the pretty much the entire financial world tied to its coat tails -- from a dizzying tailspin that is crushing markets and people across the globe.

US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Monday named Neel Kashkari, currently the Assistant Secretary for International Affairs in the Department of Treasury, as the interim head for its new Office of Financial Stability, including the Troubled Asset Relief Program, to oversee the $700-billion bailout program aimed at arresting the US economy's precipitous slide arising from the mortgage crisis.

Kashkari is one of nearly half-dozen Indian-Americans, including Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who have served in the Bush administration at Tier Two cabinet levels. But the new job clearly puts Kashkari in a different league altogether.

A long-time understudy and associate of Secretary Paulson going back to their days at Goldman Sachs, Kashkari was nominated as assistant secretary and confirmed by the Senate only in July this year in a little-noticed development at that time because it came at the tail-end of the Bush administration's eight-year run in office.

But the monumental crisis that has spooked Wall Street and the associated world has thrown the young Indian-American engineer-turned-financial expert into the spotlight. Hours before the appointment, the financial world and blogosphere was agog with the news of such a young man being tasked with such a huge task on a day the market continued its downward spiral.

Source: EconomicTimes

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