New York Times' damning look at Timothy Geithner

[Subdivisions]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/business/27geithner.html?_r=1&hp">Geithner, as Member and Overseer, Forged Ties to Finance Club

-snip-

Timothy F. Geithner, who as president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank oversaw many of the nation’s most powerful financial institutions, stunned the group with the audacity of his answer. He proposed asking Congress to give the president broad power to guarantee all the debt in the banking system, according to two participants, including Michele Davis, then an assistant Treasury secretary.

The proposal quickly died amid protests that it was politically untenable because it could put taxpayers on the hook for trillions of dollars.

-snip-

His actions, as a regulator and later a bailout king, often aligned with the industry’s interests and desires, according to interviews with financiers, regulators and analysts and a review of Federal Reserve records.

-snip-

He ate lunch with senior executives from Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley at the Four Seasons restaurant or in their corporate dining rooms. He attended casual dinners at the homes of executives like Jamie Dimon, a member of the New York Fed board and the chief of JPMorgan Chase.

Mr. Geithner was particularly close to executives of Citigroup, the largest bank under his supervision. Robert E. Rubin, a senior Citi executive and a former Treasury secretary, was Mr. Geithner’s mentor from his years in the Clinton administration, and the two kept in close touch in New York.

-snip-

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/business/27geithner.html?_r=1&hp">MORE »

[aquart]

1. I only think of Geithner in small chunks with potatoes and carrots.

Perhaps a parsnip.

[Psychic Consortium]

2. Obama knows to catch a thief you hire one to do the job. nt

[LWolf]

9. Are you really suggesting that it's ok to "hire a thief,"

as long as the thief is working for "us?"

[Psychic Consortium]

10. It is a metaphor, not literal. The point is that Obama is a genius, he knows how to do this.

Time will show that we can trust Obama.
We are like abused spouses who cannot believe we
are now in a healthy relationship.
Will take time to trust and heal.

[LWolf]

12. That's optimistic.

I'm not in a "healthy relationship." I'm in an arranged marriage, where others chose the groom that I rejected, and performed the wedding by proxy.

I get to try to make the best of a loveless marriage.

I also am not the kind of spouse, in an arranged or independently chosen marriage, to sit back and let my husband tell me what's good for me, what's right, what "we're" going to do, or how "we" are going to do it.

My spouse is not my superior; he isn't a "genius" who knows better than I. Marriage is supposed to be a partnership. He's not a patriarch.

If you want metaphor.

[Psychic Consortium]

13. Time will tell. You will see that PC is correct. We will go into the 21st century.

Kicking and screaming but moving forward.

[LWolf]

15. I'll go into the 21st century moving in some direction

no matter who the president happens to be. :shrug:

"Forward" is not exactly the right term. It suggests evolution towards the ideal. At this point in time, the current president is not moving the ideal direction on most key issues. That doesn't mean he doesn't do anything right, or isn't "moving forward" on other things. This metaphor of "moving in a direction" falls apart right here, because the president, and the nation, is not going in one direction. Depending on what issue you want to look at, we may be going backwards, forwards, sideways, up, down, or be stagnant.

"We" will evolve, and we will move in some direction. Whether we evolve towards the ideal, or are moving in the wrong direction, is the question. If I'm pushed in a direction I don't think is ideal, you're damned right I'll be kicking and screaming. And pulling in the direction I WANT to go.

[Psychic Consortium]

16. We will evolve, We will move forward.

We are becoming a moral, healthy, educated, wise
and good people.

It will happen. Not over night, but it will happen.
The debate started by Obama is the beginning.

[LWolf]

17. Whatever "we" do,

"we" are, not only the beginning, but the entire process of our own evolution.

Obama is not a savior or a prophet. He's a politician. He is not the leader of our evolution.

Politics are about power. Not about evolution of the species into more moral, healthy, wise, educated, and good people.

When we have further evolved, politicians and politics will follow.

[Psychic Consortium]

22. You are correct. It is up to the people to learn what we need to learn.

Obama is a teacher and leader, but it is up to use to make
the choice to move forward or not.

Politics is only a part of the whole picture, but an important one.
We have a leader who now moves us forward instead of backward.

[LWolf]

23. Maybe.

I can't say you aren't correct about his leadership, because I see that many people want to be led by Obama, so they will follow him. It doesn't seem to matter where he is going.

That's the thing about "following." It trusts someone else to know where to go, and divests the herd from their responsibility for decision making.

He's not a teacher. I'M a teacher, and he acknowledged, a long time ago, that he "gets in trouble with teachers." Leading and persuading is not the same thing as teaching.

I can say that I don't think he's going the right direction to "move us forward," and I will continue to do so.

[QC]

18. Did Dionne Warwick tell you this? n/t

[JVS]

28. And always twirling, twirling, TWIRLING!

[Political Heretic]

26. That is, without a doubt, the stupidest and also most desperate thing I've ever heard.

Holy crapskow.

:crazy:

[slipslidingaway]

3. knr n/t

[roguevalley]

4. god, he's such a rat bastard. he even acts like one. he has zero

human skills

[Kolesar]

5. They who Bill Moyers refers to as "the oligarchs"

It took me all day to get back to finishing this article. I am convinced that the public has lost control of the government.

[tomp]

6. you just noticed?

when was the last time the public had control of the govt.?

:shrug:

[Kolesar]

7. When I got "Citizenship in the Community" merit badge...eom

[tomp]

8. no, i mean really when? nt

[Hannah Bell]

11. sometime before shay's rebellion?

[tomp]

14. sounds about right. it was certainly not within living memory. nt

[leftofthedial]

19. The fact that geithner is Secretary of the Treasury, overseeing the "bailout"

is proof of who really owns this country and its government.

It is government by the people, of the people and for the people, as long as those people own multinational banks.

[Hannah Bell]

20. geithner's dad = obama's mom's boss at ford foundation, indonesia.

[Romulox]

21. I love how they just refuse to address the difference in treatment of Main Street v. Wall Street.

If Geithner, Summers, and Obama et al don't mention it, maybe we'll forget? :shrug:

[Hubert Flottz]

24. Having Timothy Geithner in charge is every bit as safe and

sane as letting the un-inspected semi trucks and truck drivers from Mexico drive our roads in unsafe vehicles and deliver goods all over the USA! We do safety checks on American trucks, but not on trucks entering the US from other countries. An unsafe truck with a driver that may not be able to read and understand road signs or who might have had a seizure three weeks ago, is like letting a low budget 18 wheeled ICBM come flying into America. How long before one of those un-inspected trucks or truck drivers crashes a load of lethal chemicals, or crashes into a school bus loaded with kids?

Twice in the last year we have had wrecks on the interstate right here near my home town, and the drivers could not read or speak English.

Sorry I got off topic, but Timothy Geithner and un-inspected foreign trucks on American roads are both blunders, IMHO.

[Political Heretic]

25. I continue to restate strenuously my objection to both Geither and Summers

You can spin it all you want... the plain and simple fact was that there were other, better choices for their position that don't have such massive conflicts of both tangible and ideological interests.

[frustrated_lefty]

27. Second guessing Obama's picks is premature at this point.