Unprecedented Powers For Geithner Requested By Obama Administration

Washington Post :

The Obama administration is considering asking Congress to give the Treasury secretary unprecedented powers to initiate the seizure of non-bank financial companies, such as large insurers, investment firms and hedge funds, whose collapse would damage the broader economy, according to an administration document.
This Story

The government at present has the authority to seize only banks.

Read the whole story: Washington Post

Comments

[foxfan]

Where do we live now? Venezuela? 1930s Germany?

[Kassandra]

I'm beginning to come around to this idea since these financial "entities have been virtually outside the law and have comported themselves lawlessly. I, like many, bridle at giving Giethner, especially, more power. But the insurance giants have very nearly single- handedly caused this mess and they have very nearly gotten away with it scot free. And the hedge funds? forget it, they created the derivatives and CDSs, even if they were segments of larger banks.

I'm seeing this as a first step toward bringing some accountability ( no pun intended) to these theives..Too many funky corporations have been set up outside the law to fleece US under Bush's cowboy style capitalism. Maybe it's time to rein them in. I just hope Giethner's the guy for the job.

[parrotista]

Yes. We need to stop making this an ad hominem thing about Geithner.

It isn't about giving Geithner the power. It's about giving ANY administration the power over these financial institutions. We're talking about powers like the FDIC has had over traditional banks, savings and loan companies since, when, the New Deal? It worked pretty well, right? Until Glass-Steagal got repealed and all these derivatives slipped under the regulatory radar.

And do we think the President has a better chance of advancing his initiatives with guys like Geithner and Bernanke, guys with Wall Street credibility, or with our favorite Marxist professor from college? or even Paul Krugman? Half the opposition party has taken up the pitchforks on the AIG bonuses and labeled the Secretary as too close to Wall Street. How are they going to be able to turn around now and brand him and his reform proposals as anti-business, as socialist? The Republicans are going to have to scramble to mount a unified opposition to the President on this. I don't know how they're going to accomplish it.

This is just beautifully played by the President and his team.

[nogimmicks]

Deja Vu. (Cheney, Patriot Act, executive powers).

Geither has just admitted that he sneaked the bonus provisions back into the bill, let us give him extraordinary powers then.

[noesis]

This showed up in my mailbox today.

Why central banks are making the mistake of treating this as a global liquidity problem, rather than a global solvency crisis.

"Contrary to what political leaders and their central bankers seem to believe worldwide, the problem of liquidity that they are striving to solve by means of historic interest rate drops and unlimited money creation, is not a cause but a consequence of the current crisis. It is in fact a problem of solvency which is digging " black holes " where liquidities disappear, whether we call these holes bank balance sheets (1), household debt (2), corporate bankruptcies or public deficits. In consideration of the fact that a conservative estimation of these "ghost-assets" reaches already USD 30,000-billion (3), our team considers that the world is now facing a situation of general insolvency affecting in the first place the most indebted countries and organizations (public or private) and/or those depending most on financial services."

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11848

[strangerinthenight]

Requested by Obama. PERIOD.

[OB-GYN]

"I know of no safe repository of the ultimate power of society but people. And if we think them not enlightened enough, the remedy is not to take the power from them, but to inform them by education" Thomas Jefferson

"You can have power over people as long as you don't take everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything, he's no longer in your power"
Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

Words of Wisdom We Can Live By

[thnk4selfagain]

Many here have speculated that the outrage over AIG bonuses was deliberately stoked by members of the Administration: Goolsbee and Summers, especially. The issue is one to be outraged about, but these members really fanned the flames.

Can it be that Geithner, Bernanke and the Administration's testimony and lobbying for expanded, unprecedented powers to take over too-big-to-fail firms not regulated by the FDIC, is the reason they whipped Congress --and us into a frenzy last week? Rather than admit thay they turned a blind eye to, dropped the ball on and enabled the looting of Wall Street and our savings and future security, they want to claim they *had no power* to do anything about it.

I am angry at being taken for a fool. Let's hope Congress doesn't bite.

[dolphy]

...or maybe they're actually trying to do some good by taking over these too big to fail entities so that they can trim them into little pieces and let the bad parts fail and save the good parts?

[davidwayneosedach]

Geithner can not handle more power. Heis like Obama: in over his head.

[Fathoms]

You clueless individual. Barack Obama is the only man available for this season. In a mere 64 days he has gone from on extemporaneous neophyte, to the master of the press conference! The man is an extraordinary intellect! A genius if you will. The most important quality I could ask for in a Commander in Chief/Chief Executive is that the man be a quick study; capable of getting it right the first time. There is no room for an ideologue in this equation. I am so thrilled that the man I voted for has expanded into his role as the Leader of the Free World.

[Fathoms]

an extemporaneous neophyte,

[Donnat]

Why not? If they're willing to take our billions, we should be able to take them over. But the main thing is - PROSECUTE THESE CROOKS! Or no one will ever feel confident enough to put their money into the American financial sectors again.

[PhilipTaylor]

Obama has a GOOD IDEA if Main Street Taxpayers Save Money!
____________________________________________________

Help The 99.9% of Americans not on Wall Street (WS)!

This is NOT "rocket science" even though WS wants us to think it is!

Only complexity is how Banks are linked together!

We could isolate them like the "Cancer" they are and build a Strong Credit Flow directly to the 99.9% of America outside the 8 WS Zombie Banks and AIG!

With a little work and funding, like a "Bypass Surgeon" does everyday, we can go around WS!

FUND Credit Unions, Community Banks, and Our Government can lend directly to consumers/businesses (like WS) at much Better/Lower rates.

WS is not the "HEART OR BRAIN" of this Country and should be BYPASSED until its cleaned OUT and regulated!

$1 to Main Street does not equal $1,000 to WS!

OPEN up Credit FLOW from the Government to Consumers and Business on Main Street, the 99.9% of America that matters!

No more FED DEBT CURRENCY! Instead Print US Credit Currency against the Government's guarantee to reduce America’s INDEBTEDNESS!

_____________________________________________________________________

WS Banks take massive FEES/PROFITS on EVERY LOAN to America paying Massive INCOMES and CHRISTMAS BONUSES of $10 to $100 Million with WS People undeservedly making 400 times what the Average American does!

WS BANKS = INEQUITY/INJUSTICE and MASSIVE INTEREST RATES +TRICKS

Banks “BUY” Congress with $3.5 Million per Congressional Member on average every four YEARS - ON AVERAGE with far More to Members of WS committees!

[dhfsfc]

Give the power to Krugman.

When I listen to Geithner, "all I hear is blah, blah, blah."

[Fathoms]

Done properly, this is our opportunity to effect the 'Stockholm Solution'; The most enlightened and socially profitable method of disposing of corrupt financial institutions ever devised by man. I only pray Geithner is intelligent enough to use this new power (should it be legislated) correctly. The man inspires a dearth of confidence. I hope he grows up and into his responsibilities.

[KindMisica]

They should absolutelly give Geithner this power, otherwise what's the use of the taxpeyers owing 80% or AIG for example if they can't say nothing?
Make up your mind, people: do you want regulation or deregulation?? And if you want deregulation, and say government hands off, let them handle their own bussiness, don't come back complaining they get those bonuses, or that they keep doing the same stupid things that put us in the whole.

[parrotista]

Exactly. It's because the government doesn't have the power over these insolvent (or nearly insolvent) companies that the FDIC has over traditional banks, that our efforts are so compromised . That's why the government has such limited powers to deal with things like the bonuses.

People need to get over the ad hominem thing. It isn't Geithner that gets this power. It's the office of the Secretary of the Treasury, who is appointed by the President. It gives us, the people, through the elected office of the President, some power in this matter.

It's also because Geithner (and Bernanke as well) are seen as "solid citizens" on Wall Street that it will be more difficult to attack the President's proposals as "radical-liberal" or "socialist". Through the Secretary, the President is pulling off a Nixon in China moment.

- Craig

[noesis]

Yeah, that's just what we need...the government picking the winners and losers. On silly me, forgot that's the core principle of our 'lemon' socialist system; prop up the well connected with taxpayers money, eliminate competition, and let everyone else live by the rules of "the free market".

[NevinBearley]

The solution to this problem is very simple, the American government should take a page out of the great revolutionary mind and thinker President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and nationalize the banking and financial system, but let's not just stop there I believe that it would be best for America if the government were to also sieze control of and nationalize the Oil company's, Airline company's, Telecomunications company's, and the Power company's, by doing this it would put the average American taxpayer in charge rather than some corporate titan in an Armani suite. So let's start a real Leftist revolution here in America and take our country back!

[Fathoms]

Done intelligently, with a light enough hand on the reigns and a properly measured approach to the hurdles we'll have to negotiate to complete the course; I have no problem with your approach. However I would like to point out that I listed a very stringent set of prerequisites that will have to be met in order for your plan to meet with success. Stephen Hawking said it best, "Primitive life is very common and intelligent life is fairly rare. Some would say it has yet to occur on earth." Perhaps we need to take this in smaller steps. There's Health, Environmental, Energy and Educational Reform, at a minimum, needing to be completed This Year. There is the toxicology of 'shock to the system' to be considered here. I don't think America is ready, mature enough, capable of withstanding the shock that would accompany kicking all her addictions simultaneously. We're not looking to destroy ourselves from within. Yet I completely agree with you that we do need to shed ourselves of all our stupidities with a serious dispatch.