Treasury Secretary: Tim Geithner

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

WHAT A HORRIBLE CHOICE!!!  Isn't this the genius that refused to bail out Lehman Brothers which kick-off the whole market meltdown?

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Pretty much expected. Clever timing on the announcement though. Now the endangered banks have 60-70 hours to figure out a game plan for next week.

huh?

As president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank since Oct 2003, it was Tim Geithner's job to regulate the banks, and we can see how that went.  Then, in mid Sept 2008, it was HIS decision to let Lehman fail even though it was too big to fail without bringing down the whole banking system.

And now this guy is going to be Treasury Secretary?!

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Pretty much expected. Clever timing on the announcement though. Now the endangered banks have 60-70 hours to figure out a game plan for next week.

huh?

As president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank since Oct 2003, it was Tim Geithner's job to regulate the banks, and we can see how that went.  Then, in mid Sept 2008, it was HIS decision to let Lehman fail even though it was too big to fail without bringing down the whole banking system.

And now this guy is going to be Treasury Secretary?!

While Lehman Brothers was the first bank to fail, it was not a catalyst for other banks to fail. And, in retrospect, letting it fail was the correct decision.

Letting Lehman fail over the weekend of Sep13-14th was the single biggest mistake of this whole sad affair.  There were trillions of dollars of credit default swaps exposure tied to Lehman that were held by other institutions, and Lehman's failure guaranteed a lot of other firms would go belly up.

Tim Geithner's decision over that weekend literally cost us Trillions of dollars.

How you call that "the right decision" is beyond me.  This guy is incompetent and is the very last member of the current Bush/Fed group that you would want as Treasury Secretary.  In fact, Obama should NOT appoint any current member of the Bush/Fed band of incompetents to any capacity within the new administration.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

WHAT A HORRIBLE CHOICE!!!  Isn't this the genius that refused to bail out Lehman Brothers which kick-off the whole market meltdown?

Are you going to continue to hyperventilate for every single cabinet appointment the man makes?

if he had picked FDIC's Sheila Blair, who was also rumored to be on Obama's shortlist, I'd be doing cartwheels. Sheila Blair is someone who can think outside of what they taught her in school, who understands you can't just follow the textbooks as if every realworld situation has a predefined solution driven by ideology.

The very worst thing to have is some academic ideologue who can't think outside of the box in a real fast-moving crises, and unfortunately that's EXACTLY what we've had with Geithner/Paulson/Bernanke/Poole.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

if he had picked FDIC's Sheila Blair, who was also rumored to be on Obama's shortlist, I'd be doing cartwheels. Sheila Blair is someone who can think outside of what they taught her in school, who understands you can't just follow the textbooks as if every realworld situation has a predefined solution driven by ideology.

Bair

no wonder why I was having trouble googling her.

Anyway, this lady has been ahead of the curve of this crises for over a year, while Geithner and the others have been behind the curve and way too conservative.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Pretty much expected. Clever timing on the announcement though. Now the endangered banks have 60-70 hours to figure out a game plan for next week.

huh?

As president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank since Oct 2003, it was Tim Geithner's job to regulate the banks, and we can see how that went.  Then, in mid Sept 2008, it was HIS decision to let Lehman fail even though it was too big to fail without bringing down the whole banking system.

And now this guy is going to be Treasury Secretary?!

ooops!  Now it comes out that Geithner failed to pay taxes totally $34k from 2001 thru 2004, and has recently had to pay other sums of unpaid taxes immediately prior to his nomination...and this guy is going to run the Treasury?!

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Pretty much expected. Clever timing on the announcement though. Now the endangered banks have 60-70 hours to figure out a game plan for next week.

huh?

As president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank since Oct 2003, it was Tim Geithner's job to regulate the banks, and we can see how that went.  Then, in mid Sept 2008, it was HIS decision to let Lehman fail even though it was too big to fail without bringing down the whole banking system.

And now this guy is going to be Treasury Secretary?!

ooops!  Now it comes out that Geithner failed to pay taxes totally $34k from 2001 thru 2004, and has recently had to pay other sums of unpaid taxes immediately prior to his nomination...and this guy is going to run the Treasury?!

D:

how does someone get away with not paying their taxes when they're the head of a freakin' regional fed bank?



edit. okay, it was while he was working for the IMF, he was technically self-employed somehow, so he had to pay payroll taxes on himself both as an employee and employer (which seems kind of silly- I didn't know people had to do that) but he didn't do both. Apparently as soon as the IRS pointed it out he paid them back with interest.

So, not quite as bad as it first sounded. Possibly even a misunderstanding?

source:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123187503629378119.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

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every dba or self-incorportated person knows you have to pay both sides of Social Security, it is clearly spelled out in Schedule SE.  The fact that didn't know the mere basics of the tax code while working for the IMF is shocking.