Fire Tim Geithner. Then Be a One-Term President.
I doubt even the Internet’s self-appointed Chief Geithner Apologist will be foolish enough to stand by him after this piece of shite:
Some people just don’t like movies with happy endings. How else to explain this week’s report by the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP)? Rather than focusing on the growing evidence we’ve seen in recent months that TARP will be far less costly than anyone expected, SIGTARP instead sought to generate a false controversy over AIG to try and grab a few, cheap headlines.
There are no “facts” in that paragraph, and there is no excuse for this coming from Treasury. Ignore that Treasury is deliberately including selling off its expected future value as part of its “break-even” calculation. Ignore that Treasury’s practice has been to count “TARP” (the first effort) as the only Government Subsidy to those institutions that have “paid back” their loans by ramping up debt and refusing to be “financial intermediaries” [Link updated] which was the half-assed justification for giving them that money in the first place. Ignore the billions of dollars of asset guarantees from the Fed that are still the only reason people pretend The Big C is solvent.
What we have is the Department of the Treasury impugning the purpose and the office of the Special Inspector General for TARP, that is the office charged with
the responsibility, among other things, to conduct, supervise and coordinate audits and investigations of the purchase, management and sale of assets under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (“TARP”). SIGTARP’s goal is to promote economic stability by assiduously protecting the interests of those who fund the TARP programs – i.e., the American taxpayers. This is achieved by facilitating transparency in TARP programs, providing effective oversight in coordination with other relevant oversight bodies, and through robust criminal and civil enforcement against those, whether inside or outside of Government, who waste, steal or abuse TARP funds. [emphasis mine]
If Tim Geithner wants to whine that someone doesn’t believe his lies, he’s welcome to do so—as a private citizen, reaping the fruits of his last few years fellating Goldman Sachs by accepting the Senior Management position that surely awaits him.
And he should do so sooner, not later.
And, by the way, Barry: you should request and then accept his resignation. Because only the thought of Joe Biden (Sen-MBNA/BofA) as President keeps me from pointing out that such releases are your responsibility, sent out as part of whitehouse.gov. Enjoy your next two years, and the Palin/Huckabee Presidency you will have wrought.
Wow Ken, you are really harshing the hopey/changey buzz at the White House.
The liberal dream team evaporating?
Part of the problem with the Liberal Dream Team concept is that B. Hoover Obama (aka the Big O) was never a Liberal. Most of the rest is his adherence to Bush war policies and keeping too much of the Bush economic team.
Jz
Actually Ken, you should look at the SIGTARP guy, Barofsky. He is a complete idiot.
str,
Its been evaporating for awhile now. Just the heats going up the evaporation is increasing…
Remember all the things we were promised to happen? The list on foriegn affairs is long, but the list of internal products is almost as long. But the left elected the only player for president, in either party, who had less experience than Palin. And then compounded the error with a VP that makes Quail look acceptable. the buyers remorse and panic from the left is a sight to behold.
I wonder, assuming the Dems to get toasted come Tuesday, if Obama can be as successful as Clinton was following 1994?
I just don’t see it in him. YMMV
Islam will change
This is the stupidest post I’ve ever seen on this site. Aside from the tea-bag special use of “Barry” to refer to the President, we get the now classic argument that you can’t claim TARP success because unspecified other funds were also spent. There are no “lies” from Geithner. None. Keep flacking Bush appointee Barofsky as a moral authority.
I would say that Obama is a one termer after shooting off his mouth this week.
And then you link to a site that claims Dylan Ratigan as an authoritative source. What’s wrong with you?
Actually I think this was a little over the top with the sarcasm. Ken is a little more measured.
Ken, you might add the http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aOU4QAVClHXI&pos=3“>Bloomberg FOIA Request to your list of outrages.
TARP was necessary because of the UTTER FAILURE of Government and Regulators. Tim Geithner was front and center in that group. And TARP is a *small* part of the aid provided to the Banks, which in turn is only part of the cost of their reckless behavior. To claim that TARP was a success in any way is not only repugnant, given the suffering cuased by prior government/regulatory lapses, but irresponsible as it compromises the necessary policy response.
In fact I would wager that it is only by “shooting off” his mouth more frequently that Obama has any hope of returning in 2012 for another term. He’s been a pussy to the Congress and even more so to the Republicans. Being whipped is not the way to impress our gun tottin’ Americans. The only thing that gets the voters out and swinging is their perception of a good fight and a better fighter. Obama’s problem now is to prove that he is more than just good talk. Tough talk might convey the impression that he is finished with acting like a door mat to regressive ideologies. Something significant in regards to ending the wars would be a tough act. Calling out the fools that have taken over the Republican Party, Tea Bags a flighin’, would be a step forward. There are more voters out there that are more likely to stay out there than in the polling places if they aren’t energized by a bit of more “manly” effort. The Mr Nice Guy routine has played out and not generally worked out.
I’m not sure where people are getting that Obama is a pussy to Congress. His first year in office is considered by a lot of poli sci folks to be among the most successful, ever. Consider:
http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/
In fact at one point he had a better than 93% success rate for any initiative he personally endorsed. (Forget the exact number; might have been 95 or 97%.)
Consider the recent piece in the Rolling Stone, which isn’t either an economic blog or a political blog, nor any kind of fact checker, but does put a different spin on things:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/220013
He is neither ineffective at policy nor bad at keeping promises. What he is is bad at getting people to believe that he’s done either.
JackR
Go bvack to your comments and hit the delete button under two of them. You have to be logged in under the same account, I think.
Sometimes, usually on Tuesdays, God gets bored. This is when he does his polling. Naturally, God is able to read everyone’s mind simultaneously. This only takes a minute or two and He finds the results very useful in planning natural disasters. These are of course for thinning purposes.
This past Tuesday God decided to analyze economists due to the number of complaints He has received lately in prayers, and in profane blasphemies. What He decided to check for in this particular poll was whether there were any economists who actually believed, genuinely, that the US Government was not devaluing the dollar intentionally. God has a fondness for the ‘almighty dollar’ and so… He had been following this issue on CNN.
As it turned out, when God looked into the minds of all economists there was only one exception, Tim Geithner. This meant that a natural disaster would be unnecessary and so this pleased God. And being relieved, He decided to give Tim a second chance so He looked into Tim’s mind exclusively. Fortunately for Tim, God discovered that the Economist Geithner was merely repeating the words: “The US is not deliberately devaluing the dollar”, over and over again. Which is exactly, just as Ben Bernanke had instructed Tim to do, and what Tim had done each morning before reporting for duty for the past few weeks.
This left God a little concerned about the almighty dollar, but He couldn’t remember if the words IN GOD WE TRUST were still in play or not, and He knew there had been some related controversy, so, having more important things to do, God decided to let it all go. “Economists”, He said while shaking his head in disgust, “I should probably deal with them the next time they congregate in some comprehensive way.” Then God turned on His gigantic TV and watched His favorite morning programs.
Has Barofsky brought a single indictment? No. Will he? No. He knows the score. The powers that be have total contempt for his job and the power to absolutely crush any legal trouble he may bring upon them, and then him personally. So he launches a few rhetorical zingers at them which only losers like us pay attention to, case closed. Histories actors have moved on as we sift the litter of what is gone. I expect congress will shut down SIGTARP in short order. The White House will sign the execution within moments. Nobody will care. My only interest is if Barofsky stays in the Beltway or moves on out. I have a hunch he stays.
That’s such inane nonsense it’s hard to know where to begin. Geithner is a bureaucrat. When he was at the NYFEd, he worked for the board of the NYFed and for the Federal Reserve Bank – and not in a policy setting position. If you think that the NYFed board wanted someone to tell them that a radical new era of regulation was needed, you have no idea. So if you want to criticize the job Geithner has done as Treasury Secretary, try focusing on what you think he’s done wrong as Treasury Secretary instead of trotting out a bunch of nonsense about what he coulda/shoulda/woulda done in a different job working to implement different policies defined by different people.
What is most ridiculous about this line of argument is that often the same people who cannot get beyond what Geithner did at NYfed, cite NAFTA supporters Reich and Krugman, or world bank apostate Stiglitz, or even the failed regulator Bill Black to back up their POV.
frafelipe,
I won’t go to the links, but I assume this is sarcasm???
If not I laughed out load,”He is neither ineffective at policy nor bad at keeping promises.”
Bwahahahahah! You made my day, this will keep me laughing for a week.
Islam will change
I guess we get an avalanche in Jackson Hole this year?
To bring an indictment, he’d need to identify a criminal act first instead of bitching about stuff that has nothing to do with either law or his job description.
His first year in office is considered by a lot of poli sci folks to be among the most successful, ever.
Have to agree with frafilipe here. Passing the healthcare abomination, the stimulus, etc. etc. were incredible accomplishments. Unfortunately, 80% of the voters describe themselves as “conservative” or “moderate” and only 20% as “liberal” http://www.gallup.com/poll/144053/2010-Electorate-Looking-Republican-Past.aspx
so his success is his undoing.
In addition, his personality does not wear well.
What’s funny is how out of step network “progressives” are on this with the labor movement, with physician reform organizations, and with progressive politicians like Sherrod Brown and Barbara Lee.
The network progressives have bought into the Republican PR response to Obama’s reforms in a shockingly gullible fashion.
The whole AIG “exit” is based on lies. The press releases from Treasury deliberately obfuscated the transaction to make it seem like UST was converting their senior position in the capital structure [preferred equity] at $30 per share when the stock was trading at around $36-$37, when actually they converted at $45, gave up their previous common equity position for nothing and handed out warrants to the other shareholders. So they gave away roughly $20 bn, accrued but not paid preferred dividends, and their senior position in the capital structure.
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2010/10/05/explaining-the-aig-exit/
buffy, restated: I won’t look at the evidence, because it contradicts what I believe. Sneering is better.
frafalipe, I am troubled. You seem to be arguing that a guy who is bad at politics has managed to win the highest politcial office in the land. We must be a country of very bad politicians for that to have happened.
Only the Justice department can bring indictments. Barofsky can only give his results to them and they decide. Or he can give info to the SEC for civil actions.
kharris, restated: I will stick my head in the sand and ignore all the evidence becuase sneering is better.
So tell me how is Gitmo going? Afghanistan? Iraq (yes still on the Bush timetable)? drone attacks in Pakistan?
or maybe we should talk about DADT? the Fed? ObamaCare? Cap-and-trade? 8% unemployment? Bank bailouts?
Do I need to keep going??? You crack me up!
Islam will change
So when Treasury swaps its preferred stock for common stock, it’s swapping something with essentially zero secondary-market value for something much more liquid and marketable.
This is a b/s statement. Preferred is senior in the capital structure, meaning it gets paid off first. There’s no need to convert it “into something much more useful”.
AIG has appreciated in stock price since the announcement becuase natural shorts are afraid of what other irrational activity Treasury is going to do to transfer value from taxpayers to non-Treasury shareholders of the firm. Eventually, and before Treasury can sell, those shorts are going to front run Treasury’s sale, and they’re not going to get anywhere close the the $20 bn of common they had but wiped out, plus the converted preferred.
They could have sold the preferred stake with a haircut to par to a third party, but politically it’s a lot easier to say “hey our stake was worth $60 bn when we converted, but the market took the value of our common down to $40” than announcing they sold their preferred stake at a discount to par.
Do I want to get into this? No. I do not. But … Obama campaigned on going into Afghanistan, which many people think was “the right” war. Granted, people thought it was the right war 8 years ago, and it isn’t clear it is the right war now. But how is Afghanistan going now compared to, say, any time in the previous five years? At one point in Obama’s first year he had captured or killed something like 20 of the top 50 Taliban on whateverthehell list people use to rank these things.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the health care bill _passed_ and according to the non-partisan CBO would actually _save_ money. Now, that might be speculation and costs might go through the roof, but the official non-partisan estimate is a net _savings_. Bank bailouts are largely self-funding, as this original post addresses. Isn’t the current estimate that the all but about 1/14th of the pricetag has or will get paid back?
Hearing “you crack me up” sounds a lot like people complaining about Cash-for-Clunkers a year or two ago. It was a program that was, by almost every measure, a huge success. Kept Detroit afloat. Got a lot of gas guzzlers off the road. Was relatively cheap compared to other methods of trying to do just those two things. But any time I turned on the radio I heard how terrible it was, and just another example of how crappily the government works, etc. A cheap, effective program that keeps lots of people employed and gets rid of bad cars. Terrible.
Drones? As opposed to what? Do we have a comparison of the effectiveness of drones to non-drones, either as measured in: 1) deaths of US troops; 2) collateral damage and civilian deaths; 3) getting the bad guys, whoever those are; 4) cost? I suspect drones are better all the way around.
frafelipe,
As many here have pointed out. We have killed the 20 of the top 50 multiple times over th eyears. The first during the time I was flying over Afghanistan in 2001. I actually will give you this point and I’ll concede that Obama has done a fairly adequate job of insuring Bush’s legacy in the Iraq Victory.
You will find few on the left defending Obama when it come sto the execution of the war or all the legislation passed around the war during Bush’s time as President (all of which Pres Obama has supported BTW).
No one believed, including the CBO, the idea that Obamacare is going to save money. And that nonsense has been discredited long ago. The CBO scored what it was given (as its required to by law). Not what anyone actually beleives will happen. Everyyear the CBO scores the propoased budgets with the Medicare Doctors cuts (40% for cardiac psecialists last year) and every year Congress passes laws that void the cuts – after the CBO score. So come to me when you join the reality based people.
If you believe we are revenue neutral on the banks you probably also beleive the fiction that the US Gov is not responsible for the Fannie and Freddie debts. And this hasn’t even come close to being over. Again you’ve been drinking the Koolaid.
Cash for clunkers was horrible. Its caused a rise in used car pricesand all it did was bring forward purchases. Now that its over – so are the purchases (same for the housing $). Both were terrible.
Got to go.
Islam will change