Newsmaker

Every Friday, we choose an alum who has been making headlines—for better or for worse.
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Neal Wolin ’83, ’88JD

By the staff | 11:46am May 22 2009

Like a lot of former Clinton administration appointees, Neal Wolin ’83, ’88JD, has found his way back to Washington under President Barack Obama—with some baggage. A Treasury Department lawyer in the 1990s, Wolin made a Bush-era detour into the insurance business. On May 19, the Senate unanimously confirmed his new appointment as deputy Treasury secretary under Tim Geithner. The move “isn’t exactly confidence-inspiring,” one blogger noted, since Wolin oversaw the Treasury’s drafting of the 1999 law that repealed the Depression-era firewall between commercial banks and riskier investment banking. Many commentators blame the repeal for some of the reckless lending that fueled the current economic meltdown. Geithner, however, says he’s “thrilled” to have Wolin on his team “at this critical moment in our nation’s history.”

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