Tim Geithner - Stay or Resign?

[Junkdrawer]

Poll question: Tim Geithner - Stay or Resign?

[LakeSamish706]

1. Probably the same question should be put in a poll for President Obama then! President...

Obama should probably resign then if you are asking for Geithner to resign...

[Junkdrawer]

3. So you think Obama's fate is tied to Tim that closely?

Really?

[LakeSamish706]

4. Yep, I do... If President Obama thought the he was the man to do the job...

Until he decides otherwise, he works for me...

[MrMickeysMom]

9. I just don't see it like that-

If the plus and minus side in running the US Treasury by Obama's choice is not working at present, then Obama's not getting the right advice.

There is a lot more to the story of why the banking system has been allowed to run the way it has, and I believe it involves many heads who are about to roll in congress.

[LakeSamish706]

12. And that is why we are all entitled to our own opinions..... n/t

[MrMickeysMom]

14. Well, sure it is!

Thanks for recognizing!

[LakeSamish706]

2. President Obama hired him, so if he needs to go, then he should be fired by the same! n/t

[ZombieHorde]

5. Businesses would suffer if they adopted such a policy, and so would the U.S. government. nt

[LakeSamish706]

7. So, that would tell me that you think President Obama should resign then! n/t

[ZombieHorde]

15. Well, that is not what I think, but perhaps the semantics of my post were off.

I would like to see Obama stick around a little longer.

[jordi_fanclub]

8. Don't ask too much. It's just the final countdown...

The 'Confidence' Kiss-Off

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said this afternoon that Barack Obama has "complete confidence" in flailing Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Which means he will be fired shortly. How long? Here's a handy guide:


Tom Daschle
February 2, 2009: Obama is asked if he still supports Daschle's nomination as Secretary of Health and Human Services after Daschle admitted his failure to pay more than $140,000 in back taxes. He responds "Absolutely."
February 3, 2009: Daschle withdraws nomination, Obama tells NBC News, "I screwed up."

Lag time: 1 day.

http://gawker.com/5172539/the-confidence-kiss+off

[LakeSamish706]

11. I don't believe that actually... I believe that President Obama does have confidence...

in him. Funny thing, before today I had no confidence in CEO Liddy, but that soon turned around in his testimony today.... I really believe that Liddy is the person that not only will pay back the debts, but will also save the company in some form under another name.... AIG will become == ?

[willing dwarf]

6. Wanting to see him go because of what he's done or failed to do?

Are you upset he's not able to do miracles, or are there things you feel he's done that he shouldn't have done?

Do you think Geitner has betrayed Obama, or that Obama has betrayed us? -- I'm willing to give them both the benefit of the doubt right now. Especially since we're all along for the ride whatever happens, and as a man with kids, I think Obama is motivated to find the best path to the future that's possible.

[Junkdrawer]

10. The longer Tim stays, the more the AIG debacle will be Obama's debacle...

From DemocracyNow this morning:

...

ROBERT KUTTNER: You know, the basic problem here is that Wall Street, despite having been totally disgraced by events, still has an enormous amount of power in the Obama administration, as much as in the Bush administration before it. If you look at the fine details of the latest Geithner scheme for trying to rescue the banks, it gives a tremendous amount of power to the least regulated, least transparent financial institutions in the whole system: private equity and hedge funds. It tries to bribe them to make another round of speculative bets on underwater assets. This is exactly backwards.


And I’m going to make a couple of predictions here. I think Geithner is probably gone within sixty days, because he has become a liability to the administration. And I think the real question is whether Obama and his political advisers are going to have the wit to realize that they hired the wrong team. There’s a whole other cast of people who are every bit as technically competent and brilliant as Larry Summers or Tim Geithner who believe that you need a Reconstruction Finance Corporation that would take control of these entities and put auditors who work for the US government inside them and sort out what’s really going on on their balance sheets, break them into manageable pieces, figure out how much of the loss the taxpayer takes, how much of the loss the bondholder takes, and get the financial system up and running again.


And what’s really interesting is that the people who have espoused this view run the gamut from Paul Krugman and Joe Stiglitz and Nouriel Roubini—that’s predictable, although Roubini is not particularly a progressive, he’s just very knowledgeable—but then you’ve got Republican conservatives, you’ve got the American Enterprise Institute. Alex Pollock, their expert on this, testified the other day that the TARP is completely flawed as a strategy for fixing this; you need a Reconstruction Finance Corporation. The conservative president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Thomas Hoenig, gave a terrific speech on why an RFC is the only way to go. A guy named Rodgin Cohen, who was a lawyer for the very Wall Street investment banks that are negotiating with Geithner, whose name was briefly floated as Deputy Treasury Secretary, he’s in favor of an RFC.


So I think you’re going to see this view crystallizing, that TARP is a completely flawed approach. And don’t forget that the money that is being used to bail out AIG is TARP money. The whole approach of letting the same culprits who created this mess keep their jobs and throw money at them and use speculators to bet on the distressed securities is just catastrophic. And the only good thing about the AIG mess is it’s shedding a spotlight on the fact that this is a political failure, and maybe now some people will start understanding that it’s a substantive failure, as well.

...

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/18/lawmakers_vow_to_recoup_millions_in

[willing dwarf]

16. Thanks for clarifying!

We need to be sure to place blame for all of this on the culprits who let the regulatory system become so lax. We knew they wanted to see a government so small it could drown in the bath tub. but we didn't realize that they intended to let the whole country go under water!

I hear you about AIG, but since Geitner didn't create the problem, doesn't it seem like we should trust him to try to fix it?

[wackywaggin]

13. Stay to straighten out the mess

then review his performance ,he is necassary right now and is not expendable.

[scarletwoman]

17. Out with Geithner! The sooner the better. He never should have been confirmed in the first place.

No more Wall Street cronies and neoliberals! They are the PROBLEM, not the solution!

sw

[Junkdrawer]

18. Early on, the rumor was that Obama's power base was Wall Street....

who wanted a fresh face for their failed ideology.

I was hoping that wasn't true. We'll see....

[scarletwoman]

20. Yes, we'll see. Just don't ask me for blind loyalty

when it comes to choosing which side I'm on. I'm NEVER going to be on the side of the Owner Class.

sw

[bridgit]

19. Geithner has an option imo to *start battling* the dragon that spawned him in dear earnest

*like 15min ago*, he should have results or an option on results (if that's the way they all talk :eyes:) already in his hand. But I think to be sent off would at this point pull Obama down from the inside. The RW machine is up, running, in gear and trucking along and they'd LOVE to see such a defeat of Obama's admin within 3mos

I have no idea what Geithner sees when he closes his eyes, maybe he's too freaked to close them; but he has to get going or the half truths alone will chase him out from his own office

[RoyGBiv]

21. I'd like to see another poll

... one in which only those who are voting for him to "resign" participate.

Of those voting for him to resign, how many were solidly against his appointment in the first place and never gave him a chance at all?

The only semi-rational reason I've seen for Geithner leaving the post now is the presumed effect it is having on Obama, tying AIG directly to him. I believe it's naive to think that goes away if Geithner resigns.

Tying the AIG bonus scandal to Obama is a right-wing smear job and has been from the start. As has been examined all over the place by those doing more than looking at the face in front of them, the real problem is not the bonuses but the institutional mismanagement it represents. It -- the outrage being trumped on every network and blog from here to eternity -- is also a cover for the billions upon billions flowing out AIG's back door to other companies who already have received bailout money of their own. That is the true outrage, but that's much harder to tie to Geithner or Obama and draws into a sharp focus the fundamental problems that have thrown AIG over the cliff.

And, if Obama were to fall for it (which he won't, btw) and push Geithner out the door two months after he takes office it serves only one purpose -- to further strangle Treasury's ability to deal with these problems and to paint Obama as an idiot who can't be trusted to make good decisions. Geithner goes away and then what? New appointment ... new confirmation hearings, more obstruction in the Senate, more weeks and months lost while this frickin' steamroller heads straight into economic hell without anyone on the brake handle. And that will *all* be Obama's fault.

Seriously ... is seeing the right-wing attack ads really that hard?

"Given the severity of the crisis, the most important appointment the new President needed to make was the Treasury position, and look how he screwed that up. The guy he appointed resigned (was fired) barely two months on the job. The incompetence of this administration began on day one, my fellow Americans. That is why we have to put Republicans back in the House and Senate and reign in the radical who can't even hire a decent staff."

For pity's sake, people. Treasury isn't even staffed fully yet. Read those very few stories being written that are actually talking about what's going on at Treasury. You've got individuals in subordinate positions doing the work of someone that's supposed to be their supervisor and five other people besides. *That* is the scandal at Treasury right now, and Obama has a share of responsibility for it, but then so do the obstructionist Republicans in Congress putting the brakes on this and that and everything else they can possibly do to ensure that Obama fails.

The Republicans are doing *nothing* but looking at the midterms. They've admitted as much in memos that got leaked. This is the *same damn thing* they did to Clinton in a different package. We fell for it then. It appears we're falling for it again.

And it will be our funeral.

[Lost in CT]

22. I think Obama should annul the appointment like a bad Kennedy marriage.

[Mike 03]

23. This poll is shallow because it doesn't ask anyone to provide a reason as to why

they make the choice they make.

[Mike 03]

24. Suggestion:

Deepen the poll so that you provide reasons, or your respondents have to provide reasons as to why they make the choices they make.

That would help us form an opinion as to whether or not the poll has any value.

Thanks.

[Junkdrawer]

25. I think a simple, clean, no-editorial-comments poll...

has a lot of value.