Maria Cantwell: I'm "Not Sure" Why Geithner Still Has Job (VIDEO)

A Democratic senator said on Monday that she's "not sure" why Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner still has his job, calling his financial reform plans "appalling."

Appearing on MSNBC's Morning Meeting with Dylan Ratigan, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) said that Geithner's plans left banks the same loopholes and encouraged the same risks that led to last year's economic meltdown.

Ratigan asked Cantwell, "Knowing two massive exemptions in the piece of legislation the Secretary endorsed yesterday on 'Meet the Press' ... why does Tim Geithner still have a job?"

"I'm not sure," Cantwell responded, "because David Gregory had him almost -- trying to get a straight answer out of him. What the Treasury Secretary basically said was, yes, banks should take more risks and we should continue the loopholes and that is really appalling because, right now, we know that lack of transparency has caused this problem with the U.S. economy and Wall Street is continuing, one year later, continuing the same kind of loopholes. And so if the Treasury Secretary doesn't come down hard against these loopholes and advocate for closing them, then we're going to have a tough time closing them in Congress. So the Treasury Secretary is dodging the issue."

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A member of the Senate Finance Committee, Cantwell wrote about the dangerous lack of regulation on Wall Street for the Huffington Post on Friday.

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Comments

[Begeezus]

Both of my Washington senators have expemplary records on voting for the environment (which is what we see most franked here in Washington state.) However, when I see Maria Cantwell in the local media, it is almost exclusively related to business, and more often than not, a photo op with a mega-business in our area.

I would sure like to here my Congressperson's opinion of the demise of Washington Mutual Bank, but moreover, her economic philosophy in a general sense. She hasn't been forthcoming in this vein, and as a member of the Finance Committee, I believe it is my civil right to know her heretofore unoffered bent regarding her take on economic theories.

[N2K Ecosystems]

“We’re All Screwed" was written to address the structural problems in the capital market that conflates “risk” and “uncertainty.” Markets are complex systems. If there is complexity, there is uncertainty. The inability to move away from the risk-uncertainty conflation affects not only capital market governance but the environment, homeland security, education, and healthcare. The gravamen of this problem stems from our policymakers being almost exclusively deterministically trained—law, accounting, and economics. They therefore have difficulty identifying, analyzing, and solving issues that are increasingly becoming more indeterminate.

The legacy governance system for the US capital market is in disrepair. To achieve real regulatory reform, policymakers have to move beyond form to substantive issues. Unless innovative corrections to the legacy, one-size-fits-all deterministic regime take place, our capital market will be caught in a recursive loop of errors of commission (boom-bust bubble inefficiencies) and errors of omission (externality market inefficiencies). Such inefficiencies will eventually render our source of economic wealth ineffective.

If this happens, we’re all screwed.

Stephen A. Boyko

803-644-7295
N2keco@bel­lsouth.net
www.n2kecosystems.com/

Author of “We’re All Screwed: How Toxic Regulation Will Crush the Free Market System”
http://w-apublishing.com/Shop/BookDetail.aspx?ID=D6575146-0B97-40A1-BFF7-1CD340424361

Book Review: Brenda Jubin, Ph.D Thursday, October 8, 2009
http://readingthemarkets.blogspot.com/2009/10/boyko-were-all-screwed.html#comments

[esolesek]

Maria Cantwell for president 2012!! She's my senator, and she put her attractive rear on the line a few times for the environment even under Shrub. Now she talks dirt about Geithner who deserves it.
Even Harry Reid at least got the message recently that someone needs to start talking. Obama has lost his marbles. I'm done with that late Boomer weenie.

[Artos]

Neither do we Ms. Cantwell Neither do we.

[RTIII]

I want to know why Geithner even GOT his job in the first place, much less why he's still there!
.

[FreedomCorpse]

I was cringing on many of Obama's cabinet member selections last year. All the same crooks from the same wall street viper pits (not a dodge product)

[RTIII]

(If you swap the words pit and viper, we won't confuse it for anything at all!)
.

[Cheryl2]

Still more corporate welfare to contribute to the multimillion dollar corporate bonuses. I just don't get it. Why give the GOP what they want when they are holding up everything anyway? I say just sit and wait for their snit time to be over and vote without any input from them. Why sit and listen, why not just leave like they do?

[StuManChu]

The GOP is being held out of the process. They do not need the GOP. They are holding themselves back.

[Pem3]

I like to see one of my Senators step up and talk on stuff like this.

[Kem Cho]

There are few times I agree with Senator Cantwell this is the one. Gainther should go - This tax cheater is out protecting his friends. His subordinates are making millions making deals with banks. I wonder, If Obama was ever serious about cutting down lobbying by his donors.

[FessorFrink]

Geithner is a Romulan! Never trust Romulans!

[StuManChu]

Truer words have never been typed.

[MyIrishEyes]

You folks just get it through your heads, we all been PUNKED!

[hammer2fall]

Geither still has a job because the government is not in charge of this country. Guys like Geither are.

[ztron]

By the people, for the people? Not any more. I'm so tired of politicians in our great country. What happened? What do we do now?????

[RTIII]

See Eisenhower's farewell address. The original line, as per the draft of the speech, was, "military industrial legislative complex". Failure to heed his warning led directly to November 22, 1963, which led directly to Sept 11th, 2001.....
.

[StuManChu]

I thought this was the best guy for the job.

The amateur hour continues at the white house.

[US1st2009]

geithner and all of goldman need to be completely investigated and prosecuted for financial terrorism.

some of us have been screaming about this for years but the public prefers to keep their heads in the sand and hope it will all blow away.

as a critical pin-hole view into the world of NY finance manipulating our congress, administration, tax dollars and economy to their personal benefit read the 4/26/09 NY Times article "Geithner, Member and Overseer of Finance Club" By JO BECKER and GRETCHEN MORGENSON and the accompanying graphic "Mr. Geithner’s World."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/business/27geithner.html?_r=1&em=&pagewanted=all

it's about time we all face up to facts and quit being cowed sheep. this is OUR country and OUR tax dollars being stolen in the greatest redistribution of wealth in history; UPWARD to the wealthiest few.