Tim Geithner

The IRS conservative targeting scandal is going from bad to worse. Following the Friday revelations that despite all prior appeals to the contrary, the IRS did in fact apply political bias and prejudice in targeting conservative groups who had applied for exempt status (and who knows what other prejudice when targeting non-liberals entities - perhaps it is time to do an analysis of what the ratio of conservatives to liberals audited each year is?), culminating with the farcical response by an IRS official during the Friday press meeting, this may be just the beginning of a major political scandal which in additon to tangential fallout crushing the alleged "impartiality" of the Obama administration, additionally validates many of the heretofore right-wing "conspiracy theories." And as Zero Hedge has shown time and again, it is not a conspiracy theory if it is a conspiracy fact.

We recently asked:"are there really unpredictable market shocks or are investors paid not to care? To us, all signs point towards the next currency reset. We think monetary authorities are compulsively destroying the current global monetary system; they simply have no choice if they are to keep it afloat in the short term." With Bernanke not attending Jackson Hole, we think the choice for next Fed Chair may have profound economic implications, and that it would not require expertise in econometric modeling, credit policy management, and maintaining the public perception of economic stability. We think the next Fed Chairman will oversee a conversion of the global monetary regime. Neither growth nor austerity nor gloom of night will stay these currencies from their appointed devaluations. Bank balance sheets must be preserved; ergo sufficient inflation must be manufactured. We think the dull but persistent economic malaise amid increasingly aggressive monetary intervention policies will soon engender fear among the not-so-great washed – net savers. We think all should question whether we are 100% wrong. If not, then prudence dictates some allocation to properly held precious metals. (Presently, it is less than 1% of all global pensions.)

The man who is the chief advisor to the US Treasury on its debt funding and issuance strategy was just promoted to the rank of second most important person at the biggest commercial bank in the US by assets (of which it was $2.5 trillion), and second biggest commercial bank in the world. And soon, Jamie willing, Matt is set for his final promotion, whereby he will run two very different enterprises: JPMorgan Chase and, by indirect implication, United States, Inc.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you take over the world.

Ever since Moody's head economist Mark Zandi, together with Princeton's Alan Blinder, authored a paper in July 2010 titled "How We Ended The Great Recession" (which incidentally is wrong on two key counts: i) it is a great depression not recession, and ii) it has not ended) it became clear that the Keynesian sycophant would not rest until he somehow found a way to penetrate deep inside one or more of the darkest administrative orifices of the Obama regime. Surely, Zandi must have been heartbroken when it was not him but Jack Lew picked to replace Tim Geithner - a post the Keynesian had a desperate craving for. Yet his recent appointment to head up the ADP "payroll" joint venture, which was nothing more than a test of his propaganda skills, should have given us advance notice something was cooking. Further notice should have emerged when the US Department of Injustice launched its rating agency witch-hunt campaign only against S&P, not Moody's, where the abovementioned Zandi still officially works. Last night all of this finally fell into place, when the WSJ reported that Zandi has emerged as the leading candidate to head the FHFA - the regulator in charge of the two zombiest of zombie US institutions: the still insolvent Fannie and Freddie, in the process kicking out current FHFA head Ed DeMarco who recently emerged as Obama's persona non grata number 1 for his stern refusal to espouse socialist practices and wholesale debt forgiveness and principal reduction.

We will release the full list of named recipients once we get it, but here is what we now for now, via BBG and CNN:

• EMPLOYEES AT GOLDMAN SACHS, BARCLAYS, JP MORGAN, CITI, NOMURA, UBS, HSBC RECEIVED FED MINUTES EARLY YESTERDAY
• MOST OF THE BANK EMPLOYEES APPEAR TO WORK IN GOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS (Lobbies)
• ABA, SIFMA, SENATE STAFFERS RECEIVED FED MINUTES EARLY
• FED NAMES 154 RECIPIENTS OF EARLY RELEASE OF FOMC MINUTES
• FED MINUTES SENT EARLY TO BANKS, LAW FIRMS, PRIVATE EQUITY
• FED EARLIER SAID RELEASE WENT MAINLY TO CONGRESS, TRADE GROUPS
• NONE OF THE PEOPLE ON THE LIST ALERTED THE FED THAT THEY RECEIVED NONPUBLIC INFO A DAY EARLY

In other words: absolutely everyone who trades risk assets for a living.

The long-awaited tell-all is coming soon to an ebook near you soon - well in 2014. AP reports that none other than 'Turbo' Tim Geithner has an agreement with Crown Publishers (Random House) to publish his 'behind-the-scenes' account of the financial crisis. From his tenure at the NYFRB to his stint under Obama's wing, we can't wait for all the gossip - ...and then I said, "yes sir, whatever you want sir..." As Crown adds in its PR, "Secretary Geithner will chronicle how decisions were made during the most harrowing moments of the crisis, when policy makers faced a fog of uncertainty, risked catastrophic outcomes, and had no institutional memory or recent precedent to guide them." Should be a thriller... as he answers the all-important question of why (or not) but rest comfortably as he intends to "provide a 'playbook' that future policy makers can draw on." Given the success of Obama's odyssey, we humbly suggest Tim title the as-yet-untitled book, 'The Oddacity Of Hype'.

When it comes to generating near-apocalyptic financial crises, there are few men quite as qualified as the former NY Fed and US Treasury head Tim Geithner. Which is why it is not at all unexpected that while he is drafting his tell all memoirs, which may or may not include details on why he leaked confidential market moving Fed information to Wall Street's banks, the TurboTax expert is set to take the university circuit by storm and teach young and impressionable minds about how not to do anything he did. As WSJ reports, "Former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner plans to hit the university circuit in the coming months, conducting a series of seminars on financial crises. Mr. Geithner, who left the Obama administration last month after four eventful years at Treasury, should have unique insights on such crises. He was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and then Treasury secretary during the 2008-2009 financial meltdown. Mr. Geithner has committed to seminars at Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwestern University, Princeton University and the University of Michigan." Surely, the future central planners of the world are already shaking with anticipation.

As I and many others have pointed out for years, unless you are a crony Wall Street welfare queen you can pretty much forget about any high level position in the Obama Administration.  Barack made that clear from day one when he decided to surround himself with two of the people at the core of the 2008 financial crisis, Larry Summers and Tim Geithner.  The trend is simply continuing with the current nominee for Treasury Secretary: Jack “Bailout Bonus” Lew.  The revolving door is institutionalized and at this point as reliable as a Swiss watch.

While it is a time-honored tradition that every single person who worked with Tim Geithner, usually on spotless terms, never daring to say one word out of place for fears of offending the former Treasury Secretary and jeopardizing their government salary, has upon exit from the public sector penned a book bashing none other than the Tax-challenged former head of the New York Fed (whose leaks of imminent Fed activity will never be investigated by any US judicial body), it is certain that Tim Geithner's upcoming book will have a different subject. And since the centrally-planned US population is always glad to help out with ideas, today's key trending hash-tag in twitter is none other than #geithnerbooktitles, which as the name implies, is the collective twitter subsonciousness' proposal for what Timmy's new book should be called. The real time list is presented below. Readers are naturally encouraged to provide their own suggestions.

Well that didn't take long. It appears spending time with the family is over-rated (or perhaps they couldn't stand him either) as Turbo Timmy has landed his first post-Treasury gig (Citi next?). The Council of Foreign Relations has graciously brought this "tireless and creative" thinker on board as a Distinguished Fellow. His role... "to strengthen their capacity to produce thoughtful analysis of issues at the intersection of economic, political, and strategic developments." We assume this is his gracious 'giving back' phase before six-months down the line slithering over to the big bucks at a bank when he suspects no one will be looking... The mutual adoration society continues...

As of this morning Tim Geithner is no longer Treasury Secretary. And while Tim Geithner's reign of clueless pandering to the banks has left the US will absolutely disastrous consequences, an outcome that will become clear in time, the most ruinous of his policies is making the banks which were too big to fail to begin with, so big they can neither fail nor be sued, as the recent fiasco surrounding the exit of Assistant attorney general Lanny Breuer showed. Just how big are these banks? Dallas Fed's Disk Fisher explains: 'As the most recent weekly H.8 statement shows, there was $11.25 trillion in total assets at domestically chartered commercial banks. Which means that just 12 banks now control some $7.76 trillion."

Sit down, but first and remove all coffee and beverages...

Smarmy is gone.

Today is Tim Geithner's last day as Treasury Secretary. Below are some quotes from various exit interviews and recaps conducted with the former NY Fed president. We provide our succinct annotations to some of his answers.

“Those are my principles,” Marx said.  “And if you don't like them... well, I have others.”