Ex-Goldman VP Neel Kashkari Chosen to Oversee Bailout Plan, Finally Gets to "Break the Glass"

Treasury Assistant Neel Kashkari is the chosen one— chosen for the loaded job of overseeing the bailout plan. There’s been quite a bit of finger pointing over the past couple of weeks: at President George W. Bush, at greedy corporations, at slick Wall Streeters, at U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson, at legislators who allowed for deregulation.

Today, Paulson announces Kashkari as the interim head of the new Office of Financial Stability, a new office within the treasury created to implement the Troubled Asset Relief Program, i.e. the purchase of down-and-out assets from fallen financial titans. In his new role, Kashkari will essentially be adopting sick monetary puppies from his buddies (he previously was a VP Goldman Sachs in San Francisco), and it is almost certain that he will be the next figure that Americans point their fingers at when it comes to the credit crisis.

According to the Wall Street Journal:

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is expected to tap Neel Kashkari, a key adviser on whom he has come to rely heavily during the financial crisis, to oversee Treasury's $700 billion program to buy distressed assets from financial institutions, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Kashkari, 35 years old, a Treasury assistant secretary for international affairs and a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker, is expected to be named interim head of Treasury's new Office of Financial Stability as early as Monday. The position confers substantial power on Mr. Kashkari, who will oversee Treasury's effort to buy bad loans and other distressed securities clogging the books of financial institutions and making them reluctant to lend…

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.

Kashkari was educated to be an aerospace engineer at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign before earning his MBA at University of Pennsylvania. Now it stands to see whether he can defy the gravity of a falling economy plagued by credit crisis or whether he will just prove to be Paulson's fall boy.