Neel Kashkari: A Portrait of the $700 Billion Man as a Young Banker

Kashkari, the 35-year-old interim head of the Office of Financial Stability, has been the source of great worry. Many fear he’s too young and too inexperienced to handle the task of rebuilding the nation’s financial system.

Kashkari first worked at Goldman Sachs during the summer between his two years at Wharton, and impressed well enough to get a full time job after graduation. Academically, Kashkari was not outstanding, said a person familiar with the matter, but he appealed to Goldman’s recruiters because, as a former engineer, he was different than the usual aspiring investment banker.

After Kashkari had spent only a couple of years covering IT software, the head of Goldman Sachs’s technology group, George Lee, recommended him to Paulson, who had then moved to Treasury.

“I never thought I’d see him in government,” said one banker who knew him. “He enjoyed being a banker and the respect that was conferred on him as being a Goldman banker.”

http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2008/10/10/neel-kashkari-a-portrait-of-the-700-billion-man-as-a-young-banker/

This is the guy that Hank Paulson wants to put incharge of implementing the $700 billion bailout? We don't need another guy from Goldman Sachs with sticky fingers handling handling the bail out cash.

Hey, it worked so well for Halliburton, why not?

I saw Kashkari give an address on the "bailout" program on CNBC this morning. It was a mangled mess of contracting, subcontracting, "conflict of interest" mitigation, etc. for the reverse auction of toxic waste program. It sounded like a mess to rival pentagon procurement, and a big ripoff opportunity for Wall St. moguls and lawyers and outsourcers.
A big banking emergency calls for the fire department, not a mega bureaucracy.