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Geithner: "[For A Lot of People] It's Going to Feel Very Hard, Harder than Anything They've Experienced in Their Lifetime Now, For a Long Time to Come"
AP notes:
Many Americans will face hard times for a long time to come.
***
Geithner says will be some time before many people feel like the country is recovering.
Geithner tells NBC's "Meet the Press" that it's a very tough economy. He says that for a lot of people "it's going to feel very hard, harder than anything they've experienced in their lifetime now, for a long time to come."
Of course, Geithner is a large part of the reason that it will be so hard.
As I pointed out in May:
Geithner has been a big part of the problem.
He's previously said that his job as head of the New York Fed wasn't as a regulator, even though one of the Fed's core jobs is to regulate. As Dylan Ratigan writes:
In
Geithner's own words during confirmation hearings in March: "First of
all, I've never been a regulator...I'm not a regulator." According to
the New York fed bank's Web site, that was your job!!Quoting from
the Fed's website: "As part of our core mission, we supervise and
regulate financial institutions in the Second District." That district
of course is the epicenter for bailed out banks and billion dollar
bonuses.***
Indeed, as I've previously noted:
Tim Geithner told the Today Show that:
It's
"deeply unfair" that some financial institutions that got
taxpayer-paid bailouts are emerging in better shape from the recession
than millions of ordinary Americans.Geithner also argued that President Barack Obama had no choice when confronted with a financial crisis.
"As the president has said, we had to do some very unpopular things," Geithner said. "People looked at what had happened."
"It's
not fair. It's deeply unfair," he said. "He (Obama) had to decide
whether he was going to act to fix it or stand back ... and that would
have been calamitous for the American economy."There are only a couple of minor inaccuracies in Geithner's statements:
- The government hasn't done anything to fix the economy
- Geithner's entire approach
is wrong, because the economy can't recover until many of the
"financial institutions that got taxpayer-paid bailouts [and] are
emerging in better shape" are broken up
- The government has been anemic in addressing unemployment
Moreover,
it is not like their approach fell on them and they couldn't do
anything about it. Geithner ... and the boys made a conscious decision to side with the oligarchy at the expense of the people.As Simon Johnson and James Kwak write:
[There
was a] point at which the government had to decide if it would defend
the financial oligarchy from populist outrage, or whether it would
reform the financial system that brought us the financial crisis and
severe recession. We do not think it was an easy choice. But ultimately
Obama and his advisers chose to bet on the bankers they knew. The
result has been even larger banks and an even more concentrated
financial sector.***
Geithner ended the interview with this pearl of wisdom:
"What
happened in our country should never happen again," he said. "People
were paid for taking enormous risks. It was a crazy way to run a
financial system." Geithner said, "It's the government's job ... to do a
better job of restraining that kind of risk-taking."Indeed ... too bad that Geithner and the boys are still encouraging that kind of risk-taking.
Geithner
was, of course, largely responsible for much of the failure of the
government to restrain risk-taking in the first place.As William Black points out:
Mr.
Geithner, as President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York since
October 2003, was one of those senior regulators who failed to take
any effective regulatory action to prevent the crisis, but instead
covered up its depth.Geithner was also complicit in Lehman's accounting fraud [and see this].
And pushed to pay AIG's CDS counterparties at full value, and then to keep the deal secret.
And as Robert Reich notes
today, Geithner was "very much in the center of the action" regarding
the secret bail out of Bear Stearns without Congressional approval.([G]eithner and his buddies helped blow the bubble and try to cover up wrongdoing on Wall Street.)
Geithner has been equally bad as Treasury boss. Indeed, there is hardly a single independent economist who thinks he has been responding appropriately to the economic crisis.
Sorry to say, but Geithner has long been a yes-man to the powers-that-be, who ships pallets of money wherever he is told without question or any follow-up or tracking whatsoever.
Even worse, Geithner has been called an idiot by Nassim Taleb and a "con man" by Time Magazine.
***
And
because Geithner (along with Bernanke) have insisted that the big
banks be bailed out at Main Street's expense, that the status quo be
protected instead of reformed, and that the U.S. insure the debts of the
too big to fails, the next crisis will be even bigger than the last.
- advertisements -
Didn't this same guy write a commentary in the NYT entitled "Welcome to the Recovery?" about this time a year ago? Why, yes he did...maybe he's the perfect contrary indicator.
"deeply unfair"????
Yes. Such a shame, isn't it Timmy? Fucking sociopath.
Geithner proved he was in the pocket of GS when he got them 100 cents on the dollar for crap.
That will be his legacy and the reason Washington has a revolving door with the bankers.
This son of a bitch needs to be hung from the nearest tree.
Vote for your favourite fate for Timmah:
1) Dies of a heart attack at the age of 80, whilst having sex. With an enraged gorilla, after a tragic failure to train it properly.
2) Hungry poor people mash his bones for the tasty marrow.
3) Dick weasels.
And when the elderly start dying on the streets because of Medicare and Medicaid cuts, won't that be grand?
Both parties, especially the extreme elements, have destroyed the country.
Last paragraph of the article is succinct, however blame both chief executives who were /are at the helm of this nightmare.
"Geithner ... and the boys made a conscious decision to side with the oligarchy at the expense of the people."
Best one line summary of everything that has happened over the last two years that I have seen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljIQo1OHkTI
Simple Minds - Alive And Kicking
At the very top of our most important financial, corporate and governmental institutions the Rule of Law has been suspended in an orgy of fraud and corruption. Our leadership no longer represents the people and borrowing $1.5 Trillion + a year to continue down the same path is the definition of insanity.
Geithner zerObama and vast bureaucratic institutions are the Minions of a sociopathic cabal of transnational financial and corporate elites.
As you have rightly pointed out; this is not democracy and it surely is not capitalism.
When government policy is driven by corporate and financial elitist, where positive returns are enjoyed by a few fat cats and their loses are socialized it's Fascism not free market capitalism.
Christopher Whalen said, "The fraud and obfuscation now underway in Washington to protect the TBTF banks and GSEs totals into the trillions of dollars and rises to the level of treason." This is not a question of party loyalty or right vs. left. It is a great fundamental principle of freedom, justice and humanity, a tenet of truth, law and legal right which is sought to be tampered with, and down-trod.
Thomas Pain said, "It is the duty of the Patriot to protect his country from his government." Or leaders have failed to uphold constitution. They have broken their social contract and thus, have lost the consent of the governed; "WE THE PEOPLE"
To protect our liberty and the Union, every Patriot must physically take a stand against Tyranny to reinstate a government of the people, by the people and for the people!.
See: THE FOUNDING FATHERS: MYTH ASIDE, THIS IS A VISION GONE WRONG! - Part One
Inflection PointGeithner is right about one thing. The govt should have stepped in to stop all the excesses taking place in Wall St. The Bush team: Cheney, Paulson, Rove, + Bernanke, Greenspan, Clinton, Geithner, Summers....all these guys need to immediately retire to the Arctics and not come out till the next ice age.
there are plenty of prisons below the Arctic circle; no need to ship them (waste of money)
besides - first they gonna be "water-boarded" until they tell us where they have stashed all the booty (stolen wealth 'o nations); water freezes before it hits the mouth in Arctic
He will be disposed of at the appropriate time, they come cheap.
yes, yes, ... okay ... more bullshit and obfuscation
now for the real deal:
to whom does Timothy Geithner answer?
(hint, hint; it's not to Obama, it's not to the American sheeples; now whom could it be ...? what's the big secret and why does everyone pretend they don't know what is really happening?)
"If you can't talk about somebody, they own you!".
Notice the mealy-mouthed cocksucker chose his words verrrry carefully; "going to feel" as opposed to "Going to be".
This is how his Neuro-Linguistic handlers slip in the suggestion that conditions are not as bad as you subjectively feel they are, you roiling pit of mouthbreathing peons.
Good eye Saxxon.
OREye
"roiling pit of mouthbreathing peons."
Now there's a visual.
So, Tomorrows WSJ headline will be......."Geithner predicts very long period of 'hard times', Dow drops 2,000 points"......right?
"going to feel....." Its here baby.
Wow. Did Geithner just tell America that the Age of America is over?
That's pretty monumental.
With a capital "T", and Henry Paulson too.
Based on how much money has been sent overseas to save foreign banks I would contend that Tim Geithner may some day be held for actions that would be considered treason.
That would open up anyone who sent jobs offshore to the same thing.
He has *absolutely* betrayed the American people by selling out their savings to the cartel.
And the penalty for treason is?
Death - and upon his timely and public execution will meet his mentor - Satan.
Hey Timmy, Satan has a vey hard hard-on for your ass. He'll be doing you harder than anything you've experienced in your lifetime for a long, long time.
Let's hope they let Bubba have a hard-on for his ass for a few intimate years before they shoot the scumbag for treason.