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RedditFrank Rich is right. Firing Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner won't get us out of the economic disaster we're in. But at this time of righteous rage, deploying Geithner and Lawrence Summers as the administration's chief economic messengers displays an astonishing tone-deafness. These are men who, as Rich puts it, " are too marinated in the insiders' culture to police it, reform it or own up to their past complicity with it."
Or as The Nation's William Greider explains in Sunday's Washington Post, the anger roiling the nation could "devour his presidency." Yet Obama "does not seem to grasp that the tone-deaf technocrats are leading him into a dead-end."
Action, and action now, to restructure bank bailouts so they benefit taxpayers-- not preferred shareholders, and classes of creditors, ranging from foreign bondholders to the counterparties of exotic derivative contracts-- may be the only way to ensure passage of the administration's needed recovery and budget programs. That probably means some form of government receivership, supervision, short-term nationalization--call it what you will. The real danger is not nationalization but that Obama and his economic team continues to muddle through on the financial front. If they do, Obama's job-creation and public investment programs are at risk; they will be conflated in the public mind with deeply unpopular bank bailouts, bonuses and crony capitalist excesses.
As head of the NY Federal Reserve, Geithner was complicit in the opaque and questionable bailout of AIG. So how then can he effectively carry out the kinds of policies needed at this defining moment of crisis and fury? On a more symbolic level, even his training sessions with elite media and messaging guru Michael Sheehan haven't helped Geithner become a strong or plausible communicator of whatever that day's plan is. The country sees a shrinking Secretary--which leads to loss of confidence.
We deserve a Treasury Secretary who hasn't been a player in Wall Street's lifestyle of bonuses and legalized corruption. Nobel Prize winning economists Joseph Stiglitz or Paul Krugman would be strong choices; yet they are increasingly valuable as watchdogs and constructive critics working outside the Administration. I've also thought that Obama would be smart to promote former Economic Policy Institute Fellow Jared Bernstein, who is currently serving as Biden's chief economic adviser.
Then there's a novel idea. Why not bring in the man who took on Wall Street and AIG long before it was trendy? Eliot Spitzer. Call me crazy. But he foresaw the bubbles and disasters resulting from deregulatory frenzy and the financial service industry's creation of toxic credit default swaps and derivatives. As the Sherriff of Wall Street, Spitzer launched investigations and lawsuits deploying the creative cudgel of the previously-obscure 1921 Martin Act. Yes, he acted miserably toward his wife and family and he should pay the price for that. But some believe Spitzer was taken down by certain "masters of the universe" seeking vengeance for his aggressive policing of their financial fraud and corruption.
In his first television interview since resigning as Governor, on CNN"s Fareed Zakaria's "GPS" program, Spitzer offered a compelling analysis of how we got into this mess and spoke clearly about the need for new regulations to rein in Wall Street's "recklessness and greed." He criticized Wall Street's former masters for their "hot dog cowboy mentality which leveraged everything up." (And he praised old fashioned Wall Street types like Felix Rohatyn for not falling prey to that mentality.)
While acknowledging the outrage of AIG's bonuses, Spitzer focused on the larger outrage: the use of billions in taxpayer dollars to prop up AIG and various counterparties, including Goldman Sachs (which received $12 billion plus of the government's original infusion). He also castigated the media, including CNBC, for failing to ask the tough questions, and the SEC and other relevant government agencies for lacking the will and creativity to do their job. When asked about how he'd handle the legal issue of retrieving AIG 's bonuses, Spitzer referred to tort law and the theory of unjust enrichment--along with other creative ideas--to get justice for taxpayers.
Spitzer took on Wall Street's metastasizing corruption before the meltdown. He defended consumers' and taxpayers' rights. He speaks with passion and clarity about what went wrong and what needs to be done to restore integrity to our system. He is chastened by personal scandal, yet untouched by complicity in Wall Street's public scandals which have obliterated peoples' savings and devastated our country.
Spitzer for Treasury Secretary?
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Katrina vanden Heuvel
Thoughts on politics, current affairs, riffs and reflections on what’s in the news and what’s not--but should be.
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"to their past complicity with it.""
That is the issue, the tense, as in past tense.
They are still complicit, as operational paradigm, they work under, and for, is as of yet still unchanged.
"That probably means some form of government receivership,"
You hit the proverbial nail on its head, there you go.
"supervision, short-term nationalization--call it what you will."
See above. Well you're right, what's in a name anyway? Compromise in this context (alone) is sufferable, so alright. Let them call it what they will, so long as the end result is functionally, point for point ... equivalent to receivership.
Posted by V at 03/22/2009 @ 3:03pm
Sorry, but where was all this information when he was first nominated? This entire skullfuck has been allowed to happen because EVERYONE was content to look the other way. Surely these details on Geithner's sleazy past were well-known way before he was nominated.
Posted by kingharvest at 03/22/2009 @ 3:11pm
Timing is everything...;^)
... Spitzer was right before he was wronged by his own 'indecisiveness' in his personal life...
Its a little late in the game to put a tougher 'cop' on the beat... its time for the investigations to begin... and we ought to start with that guy who ran the 'FP' division... Mr. Cassano.
I also think it borders on the absurd to join the ranks of the deceived as to the extent of the damage to the economy our mock prosperity has wrought.
Then again... since we were going 'full bore' in the wrong direction... We'll come out ahead if we just start over.
I mean really... who isn't thinking this right now?
Anyone else got some of those old American values lying around... I'm hoping some of you may have squirreled a few of them away... like canned peaches from grandma's heirloom tree... or maybe dusty boxes of them in faded folders up in the attic... or out on the street in the hearts and minds of the creative but cyber-obsessed youth...
We have been in the throes of a several decades long 'spin-drift'... trying to supplant 'financial products' for 'hands on' community building... and the negative aura that has been generated around the hard work of physically creating and maintaining value has become an oft used punch-line for those who would benefit most from the cultivation of a do-little 'because money grows on trees' investment culture...
Now... where were we... ?
Posted by ttr at 03/22/2009 @ 3:31pm
as operational paradigm = as the operational paradigm ... blah blah blah, whatever.
"Now... where were we... ?"
Posted by ttr at 03/22/2009 @ 3:31pm
Fucked ...
If the American people allow the, to all outward appearances, treasonous "government buy back" of the (adding insult to injury, gambling based) toxic assets, they deserve the bed they will subsequently lie in.
Posted by V at 03/22/2009 @ 3:44pm
"Surely these details on Geithner's sleazy past were well-known way before he was nominated."
Those details are WHY he was nominated.
Posted by freiheit1 at 03/22/2009 @ 3:57pm
And yes, McCain would have been far far worse.
We would have gotten the same result, with one hundred years of war added on for good (neo-con wet dream) population (ours) control as well.
Posted by V at 03/22/2009 @ 3:59pm
Spitzer? Why not? Ethics and morals seem unimportant to this administration. Maybe Marc Rich is available too.
Posted by twillie at 03/22/2009 @ 4:34pm
Spitzer for Treasury Sec., why not - it would be colorful and entertaining press conferences what with Ashley Dupre next to him as his private assistant and on the government payroll.
Posted by pyeatte at 03/22/2009 @ 4:52pm
Perhaps Spitzer could be a spokesman while the others toil in the background. He was very clear today on GPS.
Posted by kitp at 03/22/2009 @ 6:18pm
I think Spitzer is damaged goods, but Stiglitz, Krugman, Bernstein or Jamie Galbraith would be fine. One of them should have been nominated in the first place--this behavior from Geithner was totally predictable and I wrote in to change.gov to object both to him and Summers. I think that Obama has a naive respect for technocrats which led him to pick these guys. There were plenty of objections and he didn't pay attention to them. Now he's still defending Geithner--didn't he learn anything from the Daschle fiasco? I did a certain amount of wondering about that thoughtless remark about the Special Olympics--and about how long Obama would defend Geithner. I hope he resigns asap--we can thank the Geithner-Dodd connection for that loophole benefitting AIG's rich folks. The lower-level bonuses are a lot more than my annual salary as a high school teacher...and--you know?--we work for a living, teach real skills and truly earn our very modest occasional state bonuses (c.$1,500).
Posted by mimsky at 03/22/2009 @ 6:45pm
>> Those details are WHY he was nominated.
Seriously, six months from now we're going to be reading headlines about how there was no oversight into the money given to AIG this round and the press and the government will say, oh, gee, I guess we should have been paying more attention but let's not dwell on the past, we have to restore consumer confidence and look to the bright future.
NOW is the time to take a stand against this bullshit.
This Jon Stewart "let's sit on our asses and see how bad it can really get" mentality adopted by everyone is absurd.
Get up stand up for christ sake.
Posted by kingharvest at 03/22/2009 @ 7:06pm
I sympathise with the disposition and with most of the analysis here, but question very deeply the hysterical phrase, "this defining moment of crisis and fury." Our sort see a defining moment in everything and anything which so much as hints at a gibbous moon, much less a Gettysburg. We are showing it, too. We are being patently ridiculous and exhibiting our immaturity to inherit power.
That said, I quite agree. The new regime is besotted with overcorrection, at Treasury, of its inherent egalitarianism elsewhere.
Geithner and Summers need to stay, the regime having squandered our sense of its stability soon enough, to start down the slippery slope of self-amputation over such a small thing as sabotaging the Presidency. But I agree, Spitzer and Krugman need to come in, as full-time consultants (i.e., babysitters) immune from Senate confirmation.
There is a 2nd reason for backstage nanny status for these men of goodwill and common sense. You can see it glaring from Chappaqua with ambition already so committed to treachery, it wouldn't hesitate to slander Spitzer and Krugman as pinko intellectuals, just to remain heir-apparent and in control of the New York caucus. Mrs Clinton would sooner be Secretary of State to John McCain, than allow Eliott Spitzer to claim credit for redeeming the credit of this Nation.
But that he'd give it a go, where Larry and Tim are too fastidious for the work, who can doubt it.
Posted by Laurent at 03/22/2009 @ 7:10pm
Bad idea, KVH. Spitzer needs a few years for articles like the one to get enough traction so that he can get his second chance.
Also, Americans are sexual prudes. It will take twice as long than if he had supported something that is better tolerated - such as selling weapons to Iran in exchange for funds for right wing paramilitary groups in foreign countries.
Besides, the latter shows some business acumen that shows that the person in question can think like the people he is regulating.
I look forward to reading your article in support of Oliver North to this position next week.
Posted by srjenkins at 03/22/2009 @ 7:43pm
Also, Americans are sexual prudes. Posted by srjenkins at 03/22/2009 @ 7:43pm
Oh, come on. Spitzer caught boinking a hooker. Resigns in disgrace. Enters couples therapy with his wife. And his troubles are because we are "sexual prudes"? Is it too much too expect our representatives will possess some kind of moral and ethical compass? That they won't break the law by soliciting prostitutes?
If the vows he took when he got married were so unimportant to him, can we expect him to take an oath of office seriously?
Posted by twillie at 03/22/2009 @ 8:48pm
Bush used the full force of the federal government against Eliot Spitzer. It was a political act to keep Spitzer from interferring with the criminals on Wall Street. This is a crime in itself. Obama is preventing investigation into Bush/Cheney crimes.
Posted by stevador39 at 03/22/2009 @ 8:56pm
""Surely these details on Geithner's sleazy past were well-known way before he was nominated." Those details are WHY he was nominated."
Perfectly written.
But surely we can do something. The folks in El Salvador just elected a president who nominally represents them. First time in about 500 years they have someone like that in such a position of power. And they did it, at least over the past 30 years, in the face of far greater bloodshed than we could imagine here. Civil society here is so fragmented though.
King Harvest--out here in the Northwest, all I can say to you is that we don't have to ask the rainmaker to hear our call, and please let these crops grow tall.
Posted by onthehelm at 03/22/2009 @ 8:57pm
good call
Posted by neaguy at 03/22/2009 @ 9:00pm
Katrina writes, "When asked about how he'd handle the legal issue of retrieving AIG 's bonuses, Spitzer referred to tort law and the theory of unjust enrichment--along with other creative ideas--to get justice for taxpayers."
Sadly, She falls prey to the deception. The bonus money is a distraction from the real fraud which is the idea that AIG is too big to fail. Getting back ~$165M in bonus money is justice for taxpayers?! Surely Katrina knows that's immaterial to the billions already redistributed to the financial sector.
Spitzer? Sure, why not? There's no chance someone competent will be allowed to play a role, so why not Spitzer?
If you understand that Katrina's Fabian goal is one world government, it all makes perfect sense.
Posted by freiheit1 at 03/22/2009 @ 9:03pm
frei,
that's nuts.
Posted by frosty zoom at 03/22/2009 @ 9:20pm
Frosty, No it isn't. Look deeper.
Posted by freiheit1 at 03/22/2009 @ 9:23pm
If the vows he took when he got married were so unimportant to him, can we expect him to take an oath of office seriously?
Posted by twillie at 03/22/2009 @ 8:48pm
didn't you vote for mr. mccain?
Posted by frosty zoom at 03/22/2009 @ 9:25pm
i'm talking about ms. vanhalen noodle.
what's she got to do with any of that stuff?
Posted by frosty zoom at 03/22/2009 @ 9:26pm
hey, frei,
here's a picture worth a trillion words:
http://i.realone.com/assets/rn/img/4/4/7/3/26763744-26763749-slarge.jpg
Posted by frosty zoom at 03/22/2009 @ 9:27pm
Frosty, KvH is a member of the CFR. Do your homework.
Posted by freiheit1 at 03/22/2009 @ 9:30pm
The lower-level bonuses are a lot more than my annual salary as a high school teacher...and--you know?--we work for a living, teach real skills and truly earn our very modest occasional state bonuses (c.$1,500).
Posted by mimsky at 03/22/2009 @ 6:45pm
If you are unhappy with your compensation, change your career.
stop being envious of others who made different choices than you. No one forced you to be a teacher.
Posted by antisocialist at 03/22/2009 @ 10:03pm
If you understand that Katrina's Fabian goal is one world government, it all makes perfect sense.
Posted by freiheit1 at 03/22/2009 @ 9:23pm
Maybe.
It was the oligarchs' sticky fingers that gave the Bolsheviks the booster seat they needed to run their ridiculous jalopy roughshod over the hundred million.
Oops, they've done it again.
How do we proceed?
You are as fond of condescending as you are stingy with the penetrating wisdom stashed in your secret vault.
Enlighten us.
Posted by gangpapist at 03/22/2009 @ 10:10pm
Abolish the Federal Reserve. Hold true to the Constitution.
It's that simple.
Posted by freiheit1 at 03/22/2009 @ 10:13pm
Posted by freiheit1 at 03/22/2009 @ 10:13pm
OK.
I would rather the ghost of JP Morgan be their life preserver my damn self.
But it's not gonna happen.
Posted by gangpapist at 03/22/2009 @ 10:29pm
Why not?
Posted by freiheit1 at 03/22/2009 @ 10:36pm
Seriously, gangpapist, if we had a monopoly on auto manufacturing bringing down the economy, would you say bringing down that monopoly "isn't going to happen"?
Bottom line, the Federal Reserve is a bannking cartel. A monopoly on finance protected by the federal government.
Is that okay with you?
Posted by freiheit1 at 03/22/2009 @ 10:39pm
And I'm not in the "enlighten us" business. You already know what I'm saying is true.
Posted by freiheit1 at 03/22/2009 @ 10:47pm
Posted by freiheit1 at 03/22/2009 @ 10:47pm
I do believe there is more truth than falsehood to what you're saying. And no, it's not Ok with me.
I don't think there is a true monopoly on finance in the classic Standard Oil sense.
Finance is more like la cosa nostra: the privates are the five families, and the Fed is Capo di tutti capi.
Posted by gangpapist at 03/22/2009 @ 11:03pm
Spitzer? I don't think so!
He comes from a family of real estate `players'....and, speaking as a little bitty RE player.....I'd say, they are by their chinny chin chin, addicted to using leverage, i.e. OPM Finance, granted, a milder form of playing with borrowed money than the 32:1 games the BIG boys play at.
It's a given that the Spitzers have lots of banking/finance ties; besides, he ought to be pretty busy after taking down a $200 million office building in Manhattan....time to make some serious money, so he can afford Hookers #1 through 3 and jump up to Client No. 1.......late night, bedtime humor....HAPPY Rating: PG.
Posted by Happy at 03/22/2009 @ 11:12pm
Good article: Spitzer would run circles around The Wall Street Crowd. re: Spitzer and unasked questions: ... He also castigated the media, including CNBC, for failing to ask the tough questions, and the SEC and other relevant government agencies for lacking the will and creativity to do their job.
Yes - all part of the Good-'Ol-Boys plan.
As for not asking: How about about outsourcing and the "T" Word. Once the financial types saw that CEOs could build factories overseas using cheap labor and unchecked practices, then bring the goods back in duty-free, everyone else wanted a piece of the free-for-all, at the expense of our middle class. Yet NO ONE asks about our lack of TARIFFS - which killed our factories and the jobs that the "subprimes" needed to pay their mortgages.
Even Obama dances all around the real issue. We can't have Good Jobs and Prosperity without at-home factories. And we can't compete with the open-loop lack of morals and safeguards that we take for granted here at home.
Republicans might want to rewrite History and say that Import Tariffs prolonged the 30s Depression; the truth is that we had the biggest import tariffs in the World when we built for WWII - EVERYTHING POSSIBLE was made here at home - full-employment and prosperity reigned - not because it was a WAR, but rather because we made things HERE.
Obama touched on it during his interview with Jay Leno - Japan and Batteries - Germany and Solar Turbines, etc.
But the ONLY way we will ever get our Charismatic and Socipathic CEOs to toe the mark is to FORCE themn to build at home - by making it too costly to do otherwise.
John Schuler Portland, Oregon mail@johncschuler.com
Posted by JohnSchuler at 03/22/2009 @ 11:30pm
KVH has written a piece from never never land and now thinks Spitzer is peter pan just because as far as we know he is possibly the remaining Demoncrat who has paid his taxes! Apparently that is a dubious honor for political regressive elitists!
Some have hilariously hinted at developing a soviet or chinese style of society making American business and industry "hostages" or making America a national business prison! Great thinking I'm sure dishonoring the constitution and our laws totally!
"Any sentient being dumb enough to fall for this AIG huffin' an' a-puffin' from Barry, Barney, Doddy, and the gang is a fool who deserves the vaporization of his assets that the national political class is lining up for him. As Charles Krauthammer pointed out, the $165 million in bonuses is less than 1/18,500 of the $3.1 trillion budget. The massive expansion of government the president is planning is forever, and will ensure you that end your days in what Peggy Noonan calls "post-prosperity America." More immediately, what message do you send to the world when legal contracts can be abrogated by retrospective confiscatory bills of attainder? You think that's going to get anyone investing in America again?"
Just admit that Dodd, Obamanations admin., the Demoncrats and Geither are complete idiots trying hard to cover their tracks with false bravado!
Posted by comancheamerican at 03/23/2009 @ 12:34am
Spitzer is a prosecutor/regulator, not an economist or a businessman. He belongs as SEC Chairman (or at DoJ), although it's unlikely that he'll ever sufficiently cleanse himself of his self-inflicted bad rep.
Meanwhile we're stusk with Bugsy Siegel, Ph.D. Larry Summers & his Scam Inc gang.
And there's no way they will ever let a Krugman or Stiglitz anywhere near the levers of power. Scam Inc must be financing investigators right now to dig up whatever dirt they can on these 2 Nobelists, the way Scam Inc did with the hapless Spitzer.
Posted by sloper at 03/23/2009 @ 12:42am
I seem to recall that Spitzer had some felony charges in regards to using phony bank accounts or something.
He is damaged goods.
Obama had better do something quick, Summers was the worse choice, I thought that the moment he was picked, and Geithner is turning into a complete wall street lackey. They both need to go, NOW.
Krugman would be a good choice, but I doubt he would do it.
Stiglitz, Krugman, Bernstein or Jamie Galbraith would all be better than what Obama now has in his cabinet.
We are in deep trouble here and if the Republicans get take back the house, which by today's polls they would, they would railroad everything Obama wanted to do.
Say good bye to national health and any other kind of programs fro the working stiff of this country.
If the Republicans take back the Congress in 2010 they will win in 2012.
Obama needs to get in gear fast. Geithner, Summers and Romer all need to go.
Posted by jeffe at 03/23/2009 @ 01:00am
The lower-level bonuses are a lot more than my annual salary as a high school teacher...and--you know?--we work for a living, teach real skills and truly earn our very modest occasional state bonuses (c.$1,500).
Posted by mimsky at 03/22/2009 @ 6:45pm
If you are unhappy with your compensation, change your career.
stop being envious of others who made different choices than you. No one forced you to be a teacher.
Posted by antisocialist at 03/22/2009 @ 10:03pm
Whether you honestly believe there was unhappiness and envy in mimsky's comment, or are reading social Darwinism into a place it doesn't exist to prove a point, clearly English wasn't your best subject in high school.
Regarding Spitzer, one only needs to imagine what his confirmation would entail to know that it simply will not happen, but he is a brilliant legal mind and I hope his talents do not go to waste. Commenting on Slate and CNN only does so much, and you have to wonder how his comments would differ were he in possession of actual authoritative power instead...
Posted by wombo_wappy at 03/23/2009 @ 01:57am
So... is america finally waking up to the fact that none of their public figures was EVER a role model? Hasn't that myth been shattered?
We're a nation that's based on doing business. Let's let those who can do it get into the action. If Spitzer is gangbusters on legal actions, I say let him back in. Forgive him for the greater good... he'd be totally complaint, in fact, if he was given a second chance. Like a meek puppy he'd be eager to please. Besides, didn't he pay for the hooker himself? He's fiscally responsible! He just cheated on his wife. Who cares? Newt Gingrich? Get a grip.
Much stranger things have happened, so just throw away the prudish blanket of righteous indignation that accompanies the phony guise of pseudo-religious obsessive compulsive disorders. It's just the height of hypocrisy anyway. I mean, great shades of Jim Baker, Jimmy Swaggart, and Ted Haggard...
Forgive A-Rod and Barry Bonds? JFK's womanizing? Let it go, my friends, and believe in the Lord.... No, on second thought cancel that...
Let's get Spitzer out of that twelve step program with David Duchovney and move forward...
Posted by ficheye at 03/23/2009 @ 02:09am
"Call me crazy."---KvH
You're crazy. The circus of resurrecting Spitzer would ruin any remaining credibility he has (not much)...
and cred is key for SecTreas.
Posted by Mask at 03/23/2009 @ 06:15am
Powerful men often have powerful sexual needs or deeply repressed ones. I have often reflected that tens of thousands of Cambodians might be alive today if only Nixon had had a timely handjob. Clinton obviously functioned better after fatuous sexual encounters. If, for Spitzer to fulfill his evident potential, he needs to be handcuffed, spanked or whatever, I say: give the appropriate sex workers security clearance and full benefits and appoint Spitzer as Treasury Secretary.
Posted by bookmanjb2 at 03/23/2009 @ 07:06am
Trade Spitzer for Geithner? No, no, no, hire Sheila Bair as deputy, please. This lady is articulate and has a crisp intellect rivaled by none. I would agree that Summers should be traded in for a bullet nose Studebaker. Sorry, to cute by half, but Summers sounds too much like Hank Paulson. I was going to write Paulson, but I just heard another Paulson this morning and this one is really impressive. Jim Paulson, Wells Fargo, is really an impressive personality. He is quiet, clear thinking and articulate.
Posted by julien38 at 03/23/2009 @ 07:23am
Frosty, KvH is a member of the CFR. Do your homework.
Posted by freiheit1 at 03/22/2009 @ 9:30pm
yep, you're right.
HEY, MS. KVH, DO WANT TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD?!?!?!??!?????!???!????!???!??
look, frei, not everybody working at AIG is a crook. in fact, despite being insurancefolk, most aren't.
i'm sure someone who calls for "ending wars in afghanistan and iraq!" would not be on the A list of caballians.
now, ms. allbright and mr. volker (why'd they shut him out?) are a different story....
Posted by frosty zoom at 03/23/2009 @ 07:30am
and cred is key for SecTreas.
Posted by Mask at 03/23/2009 @ 06:15am
dump the geithner!
SECRETARY GRAMM!!!!!!!!!
Posted by frosty zoom at 03/23/2009 @ 07:31am
spitzer?
that's just crazy.
Posted by frosty zoom at 03/23/2009 @ 07:31am
Trade Spitzer for Geithner? No, no, no, hire Sheila Bair as deputy, please. This lady is articulate and has a crisp intellect rivaled by none. I would agree that Summers should be traded in for a bullet nose Studebaker. Sorry, to cute by half, but Summers sounds too much like Hank Paulson. I was going to write Paulson, but I just heard another Paulson this morning and this one is really impressive. Jim Paulson, Wells Fargo, is really an impressive personality. He is quiet, clear thinking and articulate. W e have some really intelligent people in this country, please let's use them. I love this president, but i think we should stress test some of his appointments, Some of these guys look just like the people we have had for the past twenty years. Can anyone tell me were I can find a copy of the Glass Steagall act, of June 16 1933? I had to nearly memorize that sob as part of my accounting class. Boring reading, but it really sounds important now. Why did 90 Senators vote for the Gramm-Leach-Bliley 1999, and why did yadda yadda yadda sign the friggen thing? Anyone, anyone? Was that part of his "It depends on what you mean by is is"?
Posted by julien38 at 03/23/2009 @ 07:35am
Posted by frosty zoom at 03/23/2009 @ 07:31am
Not saying Geithner has that much more. But as somebody noted, dump Geithner and hire Spitzer and you'll have Ashley Dupre back on every cable news outlet for weeks...and eventually Spitzer will be such a joke, people will be longing for the return of Geithner.
Ms vanden Heuvel (like John Nichols often does) is engaging in political fantasies on this one.
Posted by Mask at 03/23/2009 @ 07:46am
well, mask, mr. geithner will soon be gone.
when the IMFFFFFFFFFF! criticizes a sitting u.s. treasury secretary, you know his days are numbered.
Posted by frosty zoom at 03/23/2009 @ 08:07am
Sorry, I don't know what this computer is doing or maybe someone at Mozilla is living to close to the Mexican border.
Posted by julien38 at 03/23/2009 @ 08:31am
Posted by frosty zoom at 03/23/2009 @ 08:07am
What's "soon"? And wanna bet?
Posted by Mask at 03/23/2009 @ 08:32am
"look, frei, not everybody working at AIG is a crook. in fact, despite being insurancefolk, most aren't." --frosty
Frosty, I've never said everybody at AIG is a crook. I am against the bailouts because they are unconstitutional. I've never thought or contended that AIG's risky business behavior was criminal.
"i'm sure someone who calls for "ending wars in afghanistan and iraq!" would not be on the A list of caballians." --frosty
Again, I ask that you do your homework. Start by searching "Hegelian dialectic".
Posted by freiheit1 at 03/23/2009 @ 08:49am
Posted by freiheit1 at 03/23/2009 @ 08:49am
Why are the AIG bail-outs un-Constitutional, specifically?
Posted by Mask at 03/23/2009 @ 09:20am
"If the vows he took when he got married were so unimportant to him, can we expect him to take an oath of office seriously?"
Posted by twillie at 03/22/2009 @ 8:48pm
This may be just the question to ask of conservaLoser "Family Values" Republican Senator David Shitter of Louisiana as he emrges from the brothel, still zippping up his pants with one hand -- while with the other he pompously waves a finger of pious indignation at OTHER PEOPLE who have not lived up to HIS uncompromising moral code.
And just what is it that explains the immense pattern of shitbum conservaLoser failures? The key to understanding conservaLosers like Senator David Shitter is to recognize that they hold themselves to laughably low standards, as in the clear-cut case of George W "Affirmative Action for the Rich, from Yale to POTUS" Loser. And then they fail miserably to meet even those woefully low standards that they set for themselves, while having the ass to loudly blame someone else (say, Jimmy Carter, Susan Sarandon, African-Americans, the French, or the "Effette East Coast Intellectual Elite") for their shitbum failures to meet their own stated standards.
Posted by PhilMcCrevice at 03/23/2009 @ 09:20am
If the left gets their way, here is what they'd like us driving
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7957671.stm
Posted by antisocialist at 03/23/2009 @ 09:21am
I said it years before it happened, and now here it is, in living colour. Over on HuffPost can't miss it ... :
"It would be hard to find two administrations more different than Bush and Obama."
Whatever. Too annoyed to be magnanimous at the moment.
"Yet, when it comes to bailing out financial firms, Geithner's approach is a seamless continuation of his predecessor, Hank Paulson's."
This is why the media pretended to be "populous" to keep the public focused on the AIG bonus bullshit (which is all it ever was) while Geithner put into place and subsequently committed the moral equivalent of treason.
"It makes you wonder who is the permanent government. Perhaps Wall Street?"
Martin Luther King, Malcom X, FDR, and Alexander Hamilton must all be spinning in their graves.
While they vomit.
Posted by V at 03/23/2009 @ 09:28am
Dear "freiheit1,"
As anybody ought to know who has actually STUDIED the works of G. W. F. Hegel, you can argue anything and its opposite in reference to them. In the Nineteenth Century, there were not only "left-Hegelians," including above all Ludwig Feuerbach, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Engels, but also "right-Hegelians," who were, like Hegel himself (at least publicly), legitimators of absolute monarchy.
Considering that our economy is now a ship run aground, this is a poor time to argue that "bailouts are unconstitutional," which I believe is not a universally held notion, not even in our morally challenged, right-Hegelian Supreme Court.
Remember: »...die Eule der Minerva beginnt erst mit der einbrechenden Dämmerung ihren Flug.«
That is: "...the owl of Minerva does not begin her flight until dusk falls." This statement (from Hegel's Rechtsphilosophie of 1820) is commonly interpreted to mean that wisdom comes only with hindsight, but since it comes from Hegel, you can interpret it however you like.
Posted by JakobFabian at 03/23/2009 @ 09:35am
A good read:
"Geithner's Last Stand"
"Further, the problem that stopped Hank Paulson dead in his tracks last fall, when he gave up on trying to have the government purchase toxic assets, continues to stymie Geithner: how to price the assets. If the price that the hedge funds and private equity companies pay is too low, they make a financial killing with government guarantees."
" If it is too high, government will subsidize the loss. The idea that private speculators will divine the right price because this is "the market" speaking is delusional -- look what these markets have delivered so far. Either way, far too much power is being given to the least regulated and least transparent players in the financial game, and too much is being left to the caprices of speculators. Indeed, these are many of the same firms that took the other side of bets with outfits like AIG, whose gambles crashed the system."
http://tinyurl.com/dyk7o5
Posted by V at 03/23/2009 @ 09:44am
Better idea: legalize prostitution nationwide. That way, politicians don't have to worry about cheating on their wives when in session anymore. If it's legal, it's OK, right? Right?
Posted by parrotuya at 03/23/2009 @ 10:22am
Posted by antisocialist at 03/23/2009 @ 09:21am
What will Mauricio Funes have you driving, Larry?
Posted by Mask at 03/23/2009 @ 11:11am
If memory serves, the end result of most or all of Spitzer's perp walks on Wall Street were a bunch of slapped wrists. Spitzer talks the talk, but he doesn't walk the walk.
Sheila Bair is the chair of the FDIC, right? She'd be infinitely better than Geitner, but as a smalltown banker and active regulator, I'm sure Wall Street and the Obama economic team hate her guts, and Obama wouldn't want to catch that heat.
Posted by cka2nd at 03/23/2009 @ 11:41am
Posted by mimsky at 03/22/2009 @ 6:45pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Naomi Klein, Sheila Bair, as deputy?
I like Tim, and he knows where all the bodies are buried, besides he can probably throw a three pointer from mid court. Remember, even garbage collectors get a six month trial. This guy is really intelligent, he's just stiff in front of television cameras. Point a camera at me and I start to drool, ok so I drool anyway. Most of us, who are criticizing poor Tim would have a hard time finding our way out of the Wal Mart parking lot. As the Brits. would say, "Blimey, give the poor bloke a chance mate".
Posted by julien38 at 03/23/2009 @ 11:42am
KVH a member of the CFR! I likely won't renew my subscription to The Nation. Thanks for the information. I already regret voting for Obama. Next time there are two bad choices, I will choose not to vote as I almost did this time. We do not need an economy based on debt and controlled by elitists. I heard Charlie Rose say we will be governed by elitists, it's just a matter of which one. I don't watch his program anymore. Elliot Spitzer for Treasury Secretary? He is no more a messiah than Obama. Obama has shown his true colors quickly and where his allegiance is. He is an elitist capitalist, I am not and I am done. The many solitations for donations I received during the election campaign, I responded with-"I will not pay you to screw me." This country is still headed in the WRONG direction. It is UNCONSCIONABLE that Wall Street and banks are getting gobs of worthless money and the lowly dog duped people are getting crumbs they even have to qualify for. Money may be a means of exchange for us dogs,but it is used as a very effective weapon of power and control by elitists whose so called intellect and ego has them totally convinced they are superior.
Posted by oneofmany at 03/23/2009 @ 11:44am
Let's see....AIG execs get $165 million of the $170 billion. Where's the other 99.9% of the money going? The House is all astir about the $165 million and demands it back while the other $169.835 Billion goes into a BLACK HOLE.
AIG is not too big to fail. Governments fail all over the world yet the people still reorganize, live and eventually prosper.
We have bankruptcy laws that work....we just have to swallow and let the law do its work. The average american is NOT invested in AIG.
Posted by notsleepy at 03/23/2009 @ 12:36pm
Spitzer cheated on his wife. All the hot shots on Wall Street and at AIG cheated on...all the rest of us.
I'll take Spitzer anyday of the week. At least he didn't try to screw ME, and when he did screw someone, he had the decency to pay with his own money.
Posted by crackberry at 03/23/2009 @ 12:38pm
The first secretary of the treasury (A. Hamilton) had a sex scandal where he was caught paying a man to continue a tryst with the man's wife. Spitzer (shockingly) is LESS sleazy than the other New Yorker and founding father.
Spitzer would be a GREAT choice.
Posted by redxblack at 03/23/2009 @ 12:50pm
Posted by JakobFabian at 03/23/2009 @ 09:35am
I cite Hegel only to underscore my belief that we are, as a people, being purposefully divided by our pointless arguments. And we are unaware of the consequences to our individual liberty.
And I can't seem to find the Constitutional provisions that call for the Federal Government diverting trillions of fiat dollars to the financial sector. In fact the role of our Federal Government in the matter of money is quite clear in the Constitution, as I'm sure you know, JacobFabian.
But in a world where the income tax the federal reserve, not to mention preemptive military invasion are all seemingly constitutional, why not make the privatization of profit and the collectivization of loss an inalienable right too?
Posted by freiheit1 at 03/23/2009 @ 12:56pm
Elliot Spitzer is part of the honor roll of Democrats in politics and public life who have fallen to politically motivated prosecution: Spitzer, Don Siegalman (former gov. of Alabama), Paul Minor (Miss. attorney) former Puerto Rican Governor Anibal Acevedo Vilá, the USA scandal (David Yglesias is the most well known), and probably more. All prosecuted in order to remove them from office or influence. Google the names. Why did the bank call the Feds on Spitzer's few thousand $$, when the Feds were ignoring Wall Street, Madoff, AIG, etc, etc, etc. I think tin foil hats are perfectly justified here. Spitzer certainly has a good grasp of Wall Street. It's probably was why he was taken down.
Posted by jeaninca at 03/23/2009 @ 1:20pm
The average american is NOT invested in AIG.
Posted by notsleepy at 03/23/2009 @ 12:36pm
Yes, but when you fuck AIG you're fucking every firm AIG ever fucked. This recurring blackmail is effective because their threats are cogent.
The bite-the-bullet train has already left the station. What we can do now, but probably won't, is demand some accountability, some reasonable regulations, and that the bastards go about their business in burlap sacks until they pay us back.
Spitzer's a hottie, but he's taken. Doesn't he have, like, a brother or something?
Posted by gangpapist at 03/23/2009 @ 1:24pm
Right idea, wrong solution. People who have the guts, dedication, morality and sense to fight corruption REALLY aren't that hard to find; just look in the ranks of the workers at any company. Spitzer has made a lot of money not only fighting crooks, but also sucking up to them. He's an egomaniac, a sleazeball, a liar and deviant. That he made a couple good calls really doesn't entitle him for admission to the ranks of much better people who have played (and suffered) by the rules.
Posted by DejaVu at 03/23/2009 @ 1:47pm
Right idea, wrong solution. People who have the guts, dedication, morality and sense to fight corruption REALLY aren't that hard to find; just look in the ranks of the workers at any company. Spitzer has made a lot of money not only fighting crooks, but also sucking up to them. He's an egomaniac, a sleazeball, a liar and deviant. That he made a couple good calls really doesn't entitle him for admission to the ranks of much better people who have played (and suffered) by the rules.
Posted by DejaVu at 03/23/2009 @ 1:48pm
If the earth gets its way, here is what it'd like us driving
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7957671.stm
Posted by antisocialist at 03/23/2009 @ 09:21am
Posted by frosty zoom at 03/23/2009 @ 2:00pm
What will Mauricio Funes have you driving, Larry?
Posted by Mask at 03/23/2009 @ 11:11am
I have no idea what this relates to; but he probably won't care what I drive. I hear he drives a Mercedes.
Posted by antisocialist at 03/23/2009 @ 3:08pm
Contact webpage for the White House
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
Tell President Obama to fire Timothy Geithner adn Lawrence Summers now!
Posted by ETSpoon at 03/23/2009 @ 4:04pm
Makes sense. Sure, Spitzer engaged extra-marital sex but who hasn't? (full disclosure: I haven't)
Sptizer is one of the few who understands the true nature of the AIG rip-off- (not the bonuses but AIG's shoveling taxpayer money to Citibank to cover their their worthless bets on Citi's toxic mortgages.
Besides, AIG was fraud city--took in toxic mortgage crap, relabeled it as AAA securities and sold it as gold.
Did you ever know a time when banks didn't screw us? Spitzer's screwing around never really screwed us the way Paulson , Geithner, Rubin, Summers, Greenspan have.
I'll take a prostitute every time rather than have to deal with the likes of Arnold Greenspan
Posted by hkaplan at 03/23/2009 @ 5:00pm
Usually KVH is thoughtful even when wrong. On this one, though, she's just nuts. Other than being a rich boy with a vindictive temperment what exactly does Mr Spitzer bring to the party? His friendship with Jim Kramer?
Posted by mickyboy212 at 03/23/2009 @ 7:43pm
Let's face it. The Obama era is already over. If you don't know what the problem is, you can't fix it. If an institution is too big to fail, such as AIG, then nationalize it and break it up. Not a chance for the "free market" believing, grandparents loyalist, Barack Obama. For any American economist to deal with the crisis, they would need to understand the critiques of Karl Marx and Frederik Engels. Not a chance. To be an economist and not understand the most solid body of critique of capitalism is to be a physicist and not understand the works of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein. So progressives, what is the next step? It's time to get busy with all this organizing that spins from these pages.
Posted by afrothetics at 03/23/2009 @ 8:14pm
I agree with you about Geithner, however, Spitzer has too much baggage. I would suggest Elizabeth Warren, she is personable, good on TV, and very smart. Oh, and she doesn't hire whores.
Posted by dingoangst at 03/23/2009 @ 10:54pm
Spitzer took on the Wall St giants over the mortgage crisis and was crushed by the Shrub and Wall St,His article from Feb 08 was really an eye opener for me, he brought for the truth and wanted every states attorney general to investigate and he was stomped on by some provision from the 1860`s, that Washington and the Shrub had the hole card and played it and now it has cost this country a great deal of homes being foreclosed on, and a Banking system with more GREED than I thought imaginable. waht these guys did makes Jekyll Island look like a picnic.The toll this has been put on this country is dispiciable and has brought forth hate and finger pointing instead of interaction and getting beyond this with civility.Timmy and Larry should leave and bring on Krugman, Stiglitz and others that actually are not in bed with Wall St or Washington. here`s the article, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/13/AR200802 1302783.html
Posted by crease at 03/23/2009 @ 11:50pm
what will truly help obama politically is to have his minions propose more and more proposals "to save the financial system" that are transparently outrageous in their trying to save the ultra-rich who are financially exposed to trillions in toxic investments.
and the left should welcome geithner's proposal as a great teaching moment regarding whose fortunes the demoblicans are truly trying to save.
lazy leftists should stop proposing personnel to obama and finally make the effort to find out and publicize the names of the billionaires whom the demoblicans are trying to save with our taxpayer money.
this is the greatest chance offered to americans to learn who are the billionaires that wag the dog in the usa and to rebel against them and their bribed politicians, journalists, and economists.
the idiotic left should stop complaining about "WS and the banks" and ask the american people if they really want to bail out this or that individual billionaire.
even publicizing crude macro-economic data about how many trillions in toxic assets are in the hands of say the richest 0.1% would be very game-changing as it would suffocate the obfuscations of the demoblicans that they are acting for the public good.
demoblicans blackmail americans by crying wolf about "saving the financial system" but they won't be able to blackmail anybody anymore if they are compelled to cry wolf about "saving the billionaires".
only once the citizenry will start saying that it does not want to pay for the financial gambling follies of the richest 0.1%, etc., it will become feasible for obama to go against the billionaires, since at that point taking him out won't be worthwhile for the billionaires.
Posted by erplus at 03/24/2009 @ 07:41am
Did you see it, did you see it, Katrina, on morning Joe, and Fiedman fell in behind her and supported her. Wow.
Posted by julien38 at 03/24/2009 @ 07:52am
I'm willing to give President Obama's team more time but I think Eliot Spitzer ought to be somewhere in the mix. I thought he was great on GPS and his take on education finance (Slate-Lone Ranger) was interesting as well. To the comment that Spitzer is damaged goods-Take a look in the mirror because we all are damaged goods!
Posted by sherrycnm at 03/24/2009 @ 08:50am
No Katrina. We've been screwed enough as it is. We don't need a pro to do it.
Posted by Mitty at 03/24/2009 @ 09:02am
That's the lefts advise to Obama. Get rid of the tax cheat, and hire the disgraced Governor who cheated on his wife and broke the law by soliciting prositutes. A man by the way who had put other people in jail for doing the same things. A man by the way who probably used the office he held to work a deal that saved him from being tried for more serious crimes. Aren't there any competent Democrats out there that aren't criminals? "The Chicago Way"
Posted by valwayne at 03/24/2009 @ 12:55pm
Spitzer would be wonderful except for one thing. He was busted for visiting a prostitute. Why do you think he was busted in the first place? Lots of men visit prostitutes and nobody says squat about it. But he was already investigating this whole problem with the financiers. He was leading the governors of the US in investigating these guys. I smelled a setup almost from the beginning. No, Spitzer won't be SecTres. And that's too bad for the rest of us. He's a bulldog and wouldn't let go till the truth was out there and justice meted to the guilty parties.
Posted by luckytn at 03/24/2009 @ 12:58pm
Spitzer is looking for redemption. I like the idea of him being at Treasury or DOJ. We really need a "watch dog" over the financial institutions who knows the law and understands finance. There were no criminal charges against Spitzer and it was determined he used no govt funds etc..for his extramarital trisks. Therefore, I say turn him loose on the financial "crooks" on Wall Street and save the American people some money going forward.
Posted by CarmanK at 03/24/2009 @ 1:01pm
I couldn't agree with Katrina more. I'm not impressed with Geithner nor Summers and I don't give a hoot about Spitzer's personal life (though you have to question the economics of spending $80,000 on sex). I want someone in there who's going to rein these gluttons in, and I get the increasingly sinking feeling that Obama is being led around by the nose by these friends of Wall Street, mainly because he doesn't know a whole lot about this stuff. He needs to wake-up, and firing Geithner and Summers, and hiring Spitzer would be a good start.
Posted by bad_daddy at 03/24/2009 @ 1:50pm
Not sure about replacement but sure could be Deputy!
Posted by sasha2008 at 03/24/2009 @ 3:49pm
comancheamerican: The road to post prosperity America was paved by raygun & bush2 who were servants of the rich and the ignorant. Gramm (Mac's choice for treasury sec'y) was 1 of the 3 that got 90 senators to vote for destruction of the Glass-Steagall act. I find Obama's fin picks as worrisome, but not yet hopeless. BTW, boybush2 gets top honors for dishonoring the constitution and US.
Regressive elitists? Conservatism is keeping things the same regardless of the current conditions - today's pubes are the party of regression.
You might try reading a little history. The middle class came out of the depression to win WW2 and build the wealthiest nation in history. It is NO coincidence that the 2 major collapses of the 20th century were led by pubes - get an education!
Posted by humalog at 03/24/2009 @ 4:27pm
Hocus Pocus fragmented and unfocused... Wall St. Cartels speak in riddles, far to much, to notice... Seasons and cycles leave new leaves to read, while 'masters of the universe' allow the belt-way holly wand to speciously intercede. Governors and Secretarial goblins fall on theirs swords for the great orders of the age. Who where the last two Gov's in, the media spin..? Twas late in an evening hour 8 of 12 08, that Blagojevich as others heard a loud check-mate waiting just off stage.
Posted by majoriy39 at 03/24/2009 @ 4:49pm
Katrina: I absolutely concur. You've mentioned two of the three names I've been touting. But you forgot James Galbraith. Rock on.
Posted by bkrans at 03/24/2009 @ 5:20pm
Absolutely. I've already been saying this in the privacy of my household, and now it's out there. Of course Eliot Spitzer must return to his career in public service, and this is just the place for him. Who else has his righteous fury against Wall Street, and Spitzer's brilliance and in-depth knowledge about how they got us into this fatal mess? Could we please downplay the importance of people's private sex lives? His wife forgives him, and it's none of anybody else's business. Can we MOVE ON? Can we GROW UP? We need this guy. Please.
Posted by MMZ at 03/24/2009 @ 7:55pm