This morning on "MTP" and "This Week With George Snuffelupagus" Tim Geithner was well prepped / well practiced / well rehearsed. He used the following phrases, identically, on both DVR'ed shows (I can't wake up early on Sunday, not on PDST).
"Blood of the Economy"
"No good choices"
"We've moved faster than Japan, or Sweden"
"Diffuse & help unwind"
"To get through this government needs to act"
and when challenged, with an accusational question...
"Let's step back a moment"
He spoke well, and tried to give calm, intelligent, reassurance. Much better than he did in front of Congress, or at previous press conferences. When Snuffelupagus played a clip of Charlie Rangel lumping former Goldman Sacks CEO Henry Paulson & Geithner together as 2 Secretaries of the Treasury who don't understand working Americans and who think everyone in Banking deserves million dollar bonuses, Geithner rebutted that he's always been in public service, never at a private firm, and has always worked to put better regulations and more accountability in place. I thought both interviews went well. How effective the Fed's "medicine" will be - il faut voir, we shall see.
9 years ago
Faster than Sweden! Golly! If only speed, and not effectiveness, were the only thing that mattered. Sweden did the right thing by nationalizing worthless banks. It's not clear to me why gifting shareholders of worthless banks is something to celebrated, no matter how quickly we do it.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand why they can't take Shitty Bank into receivership. I heard last week that the FDIC has already taken some 80 banks, in 2009 alone, into receivership. granted, they were all smaller, community banks, with a few hundred employees, not mammoth ones like Blunder of America or Shitty Bank. I'm not savvy enough to understand this.
ReplyDeleteYes, the FDIC does it all the time. You could say it's one of their core missions.
ReplyDeleteFeb & March 09, 4X more than the previous 10 years combined. Yikes.
ReplyDeletewell, 2008 & 2009 are more than 4X previous.. I mis-read the column headings. Still, if looked at as a progression over time, the slope of the curve is terribly high. Serious Yikes!
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