Sunday, January 25, 2009

Geithner’s taxes and the $700 billion bailout

This post is a rewrite of several comments I posted on a thread on Paul Kedrosky's Blog.

He cheats and he lies but he's the only one who knows where all the bodies are buried so he's got to be confirmed.

When lawbreakers must be confirmed, who's really in power? Corruption is now the stated norm, it's out in the open. Yeah, it was always part of the game on Wall Street, now it's the norm on Main St. too. Geithner's confirmation has turned a lot of honest people into cynics, you think they're going to report all income now? Other cynics will say everybody cheats, well that's much closer to the truth now.

What we are seeing suggests that some of Geithner's skeletons are not in his closet but in Congress. If a clean outsider begins auditing treasury and the whole stinking mess we may have a lot more blood on the floor.

I’m not asserting that Geithner has dirt on major players but if there are dirty major players Tim's their guy. In other words, Geithner's record at the NY Fed establishes him as a non-dirt-disturber. If he's rejected by Congress they may get a dirt disturber. I don't doubt his reputation as a financial wiz (except of course on his own taxes) but, a new broom sweeps clean and while someone else may take more time to get up to speed on the bailout questions many people are just as qualified.

I don't doubt the ''financial wiz" attribute because everyone trying to rush him into the Treasury position (and these are some impressive names) is touting him as the best man for the job in spite of his little tax cheating episode. But maybe it's just that they can't say "we want him because he's not a dirt disturber."

The "wiz" attribution appears in a recent AP story (third paragraph): quoting Ross Baker, a Rutgers University political scientist:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2009/01/24/america...

Geithner is sliding into Treasury on the same greased rail that gave us the 700 billion dollar bailout, and for the same reason

2 comments:

Bluegrass Pundit said...

Do all our Congressmen and Congresswomen own bank stock? Nancy Pelosi wants more TARP money than the 700 billion already wasted

andi said...

I don't know Red. But something that's going to save some banks may be good for the country even if Pelosi does have a conflict of interest. When things get this bad it's hard to say "your side of the boat is sinking."

Not that I like Pelosi, I don't. But it's possible she's right and has an incidental conflict too. Strictly speaking conflicts and appearances of conflicts are forbidden, but this is an "emergency." The same could be said and is being said about Geithner's appointment. All these things could haunt them somewhere down the road.