IndiaPost.com - The $700 billion man: Neel Kashkari

India Post News Service

NEW YORK: The Huffington Post called him the new Czar in America. Time Magazine called him the $700 billion man. Around the same time that the venerated magazine was putting out its two-minute profile on Neel Kashkari, the ridiculously young finance whiz who has been attested with the gargantuan responsibility of handling the $700 billion government bailout of the failed financial institutions and save the country from the brink of collapse, an anonymous message board commentator on a website said Kashkari's appointment was "like the antivirus firms hiring the virus creator".

Funnily enough, playing on Kashkari's background as an aerospace engineer, another message board writer punned: "You really need a rocket scientist to get the economy of the USA soaring after the current fall..." But you can't put down the ubiquitous cynic. One blogger said, "Seriously, The guy overseeing the $700 billion is named 'CashCarry'? You really can't make this stuff up…" Rob Kall of the Huffington Post, who called him the $700 billion Czar, upon watching Kashkari on a C-Span show where he talks about a new kind of mortgage for the US, described the whiz as someone who "comes off as a bright, techno-geek economist kind of man -- smart, articulate, knowledgeable." I

t's this kind of a wide spectrum of reactions that Neel Kashkari's appointment by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, as Interim Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability, primarily to oversee the $700 billion bailout program, has generated in the past week from wary Americans who are desperately looking for a magic wand to make the unholy economic mess to be cleared away, even if the man entrusted with the nation's economic fate has only six years of experience in the world of finance. But that needlessly undermines Kashkari's impressive academic and early career achievements.

The Treasury Department profile of Kashkari says as Senior Advisor to Paulson, he provides counsel to the Secretary on key policy matters. Prior to joining the Treasury Department, 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. A Wall Street Journal profile says Kashkari is an Indian-American who has a few things in common with Paulson. "Both are former Goldman Sachs bankers, though Kashkari, at 35 years old, is much younger and was just a vice president-level banker in Goldman's San Francisco technology banking effort when Paulson tapped him to join Treasury. Both also are Midwesterners.

Kashkari grew up in Stow, Ohio, and earned a bachelor's and master's degree in engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Paulson was raised in Barrington Hills, Ill. And both sport similar hairstyles- or lack thereof." And prior to his career in finance, 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. His career switch came about after he received MBA in Finance from the Wharton School. As part of the Treasury team, Kashkari was involved in the negotiations of 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. A Wharton School friend of Kashkari, Geoffrey Johnson, managing partner of Catamount Capital Management in Minneapolis told Philly.Com "There might be others who are smarter, but he (Kashkari) combines being smart with being able to manage a project and lead… I don't think anyone at Wharton who knew Neel is surprised one bit by his appointment."

The man under the spotlight himself hasn't spoken much keeping the country guessing on whether he sounds as good as his resume. In a brief comment to Associated Press last week, Kashkari said, "I'd say that at the end of the day, what's most important is to have the trust of the secretary, and the president for that matter. Let's also not oversell what I'm doing. You know, Secretary (Henry) Paulson is the guy making the ultimate decisions on where we're going to be deploying this and in what form." Kashkari told the New York Times, "This project is Secretary Paulson's highest priority. He is all over it. Our team is just executing his strategy."

The Kashmiri Pundit family he hails from is a family of scientists. Time.Com says Kashkari's father Chaman has a doctorate in engineering, and won a Presidential award for his work in getting water to African villages. His mother, Sheila, is a retired pathologist, and his sister Meera, specializes in infectious diseases.

Kashkari lives with his wife Minal and has residences in Maryland and California. As the hopes of the nation come to rest on his young but able shoulders, the media continues to dig for dirt and dough on Kashkari, who is undoubtedly for now, as the Wall Street Journal headline says "the man with the $700 billion wallet."