AIG, Logic, Insanity, and Tim "I Saw Nothing" Geithner
Go read:
- If you’re only reading one post, see FT Alphaville, which incorporates and expands upon…
- Tom Adams and Yves Smith’s posting at Naked Capitalism discussing the document and the reality of the situtation.
- the document itself is available from either The Long Room or the Huffington Post.
If the FRB of NY really believed that their only option was payment in full and not telling anyone about it, then Tim Geithner’s leadership abilities make Ben Bernanke look like Dwight Eisenhower.
BarryO is, apparently, finally trying to make clear the distinctions between TARP, TLGF, TALF, CPLF, Maiden Lane, Maiden Lane II, Maiden Lane III, etc. and the actual Stimulus Package. A good place to start: One was a huge giveaway that has led to overreported profits and high taxpayer expenses. The other was passed by Congress.
Bernanke just won the vote for another term. Just an FYI…
To understand the bailout it helps me to separate wealth in to two types. There is a ‘vanishing type’, and a ‘lingering type’. As the world seemed to be collapsing, including stock markets the world over, many trillions of the vanishing type — vanished. So then a much smaller amount of the lingering type of wealth was used to instill the needed confidence to cause the vanished wealth to reappear. But the needed confidence was only made possible by doing what those who had lost their confidence believed might rebuild their confidence. So the lingering wealth had to be used in whatever way that best instilled confidence. But it seems that our national debate on this issue ignores how MUCH wealth was at stake globally.
Geithner of course was put in place by Obama to placate Wall Street and it has done that pretty well. Nothing much to fear from one of their own.
He should have made Stiglitz secty of the Treasury, if he could get him to accept the job. Or DeLong who would “long” to be back in Washington, I suspect.
Maybe Obama was put in place by Goldman Sachs to placate Wall Street. He sang a different tune last night, but he’s played that game before his election to office. Is he only reprising his last best effort to win back popular support having roughed up the populace by placating the Wall Street gang. Geithner is only one of a crowd.