Tim Geithner Needs To Answer For AIG
Of all the outrages and abuses of the past six months, AIG takes the cake. After swallowing $170+ billion of taxpayer money since September, the company was still threatening the country with economic ruin last week if it wasn't allowed to pay $165 million of bonuses to the executives that blew up the company.
As Americans recover from the shock and disgust of this latest revelation, they will justifiably ask who got us into this mess. The answer, in part, is the same man who has yet to come up with a coherent plan to get us out of it: Tim Geithner.
On that fateful weekend in September, in which Lehman was allowed to fail and AIG suddenly realized it was about to go bankrupt, Tim Geithner had a seat at both tables. He reportedly was the major architect of the original loan to AIG, the one that has since ballooned into $170 billion.
Six months after the US set a course to get screwed six ways to Sunday by AIG, we still don't know what the final tab is going to be. All we know is the news gets more sickening every week. It's time Tim Geithner answered for his role in designing the original AIG bailout.
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I am no fan of Geitner, although I blame Paulson for designing this disaster. He was the one who want indemnity for prosecution for his actions. I always tell other women to listen to men because they will tell you the truth, if you will only listen. They say the don't want to get married, they are saying they don't want to marry YOU! Next time some politician says he needs indemnity from prosecution, maybe we should automatically think he is going to do something illegal!
My question is, who can we find to run the Treasury Dept? Does everyone in high finance automatically cheat on their taxes? And can we really run a Treasury Dept. staffed only with bureaucrats and academics. I don't have any problem with either academics or career bureaucrats, but don't we need some of the bad guys in charge to tell us where the bodies are buried and who was killed financially and why?
Henry, please write a column about who out there you would put in the Treasury Dept. I can't tell the players from the pariahs.
"$170+ billion of taxpayer money "
Since when is the NY Fed or the Federal Reserve considered taxpayer money? The fact is that George Bush said he would veto any legislation which restricted employee salary. I don't necessarily like Geithner, but I don't dislike him, he hasn't even had a chance.
This is what happens when you put people in position of responsibility who have never ran a business
Where are the businessmen in Obama’s administration?
If my car needs maintenance I do not go to a car salesman I go to a car mechanic.
If you want to create jobs you need to appoint someone who has actually created jobs.
I repeat anyone who didn't/couldn't/wouldn't pay taxes has zero credibility, Nuff Said.
Two things. First, Geithner needs to be shown the door, pronto, and be replaced by someone who has not only the understanding of the very real crisis that we are mired in, but more importantly, the b*lls to admit to the mistakes that led us here and offer a rational plan to deal with the fallout. Perhaps Dr. Roubini, who has been calling this for a LONG time, or Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman, who has shown the willingness to aid the efforts with his counsel. The appointment of Geithner and Summers is one of the points that disappointed me about Obama, though I remain a staunch supporter in many other areas.
Secondly, while the palpable outrage on part of the general populace to the millions in bonuses paid out to the executives that are, at the very least, complicit in this imbroglio is understandable, I find it to be a convenient straw man to absorb this populist stirring. It seems that the bigger issue comes by the way of recently disclosed information regarding the recipients of more than $90 billion of taxpayer money; most notably the billions funneled to the likes of Goldman, Merrill Lynch, Citi, Morgan Stanley, et al...the very same banks now shunning TARP funding and chafing under the "oppressive" regulations attached.
Smells like a rat to me.
All this political turmoil over CEO million dollar bonuses is justified. However, the most humane crucial problem today in this country is banks foreclosing on homeowners who are the victims of the Federal Reserve System's failure to stabilize the economy (The Purpose that Congress intended when they gave he FED the Charter to control the MONETARY SYSTEM in 1913) and actually the Fed caused this financial meltdown with their unscrupulous manipulations of Home Loan Rates that set the scenario for a this BOOM & BUST economy.
Millions of hard working families are being thrown out of their homes with only a 24 hour notices; babes, children and furniture, with nowhere to go.
President Obama, FDR MANDATED A BANK HOLIDAY to stop the runs on banks. Why don't you mandate a FORECLOSURE HOLIDAY to stop these volatile bank foreclosures that are shredding the very fabric that holds us together as a democratic nation? What does it take to foresee the uncontrollable chaos that will follow when millions of innocent hardworking families are thrown out of their homes by the inscrutable manipulations of the Federal Reserve System?
Mandate a Home Foreclosure Holiday retroactive to January 20, 2008. Stop the hemorrhaging and the shredding of the American fabric; the family that is the brains, backbone and power of the Middle Working Class before open violence erupts that will surely exacerbate any and all the economic and politiccal problems imaginable.
President Obama you can do it NOW, TODAY, TOMORROW IS TOO LATE!
You're right. geithner has his hands in too many places to give me comfort he's looking out for MY or the country's best interests.
Its time to make examples of these AIG parasites. We need to hang a bunch of them. I bet the rest will shape up really fast. As for "laws"? Laws seem to apply to everyone but Wall Street. So i guess it wont apply to Wall street when we hang them. They only understand one thing; force. We can take care of them or we will be slaves to them. Take your pick.
AIG is obviously run by THUGS with no character WHATSOEVER......Im beginning to wish we had a BOUNCER.....who will simply SHOW them the door. OUTRAGEOUS to think that minimum wage American workers are on the hook along with the rest of the country to pay off our National Debt as AIG and OTHERS pocket all that money. If it's not one scam, it's another. Im SICK and TIRED OF ALL OF IT.
Obama needs to tell Geithner he is no longer working for the New York Fed, which has been Wall Street's banker since inception.
The bigger problem is just how much this demonstrates the Obama administration's inability to execute and their utter weakness.
They just keep getting schooled by Wall Street con men. Yet, they shovel ever more money towards these companies. Obama's only response was to hold a press conference and scold.
It demonstrates, for all the world to see, just how weak Obama really is.
How are the Russians, Chinese and Iranians going to take this? Putin could walk all over Obama and not even break a sweat.
This continuing show of weakness is very dangerous indeed.
Answer to whom? Obama? Obama sez he's doin' a heck of a job. Us?? Seriously? Geithner does not work for us. Treasury does not work for us. The Fed does not work for us. They all work for Obama. We are just the endentured servants slaving to pay off our tax debt to a country that is essentially just a piggy bank for the richest 2%. Geithner, Obama, Frank, Dobb, Lehey, none of 'em give a crap about the taxpayer. That's why we should all be studying the French Reveloution. Those French knew how to handle elites. They were A HEAD of their time.
During today's Press Conference, Geithner sounded like he was giving a eulogy. Don't blame AIG, blame Geithner and Obama. Is it so hard to write a contract that states if you accept this money, no bonuses will be paid in any form or fashion,will be paid toany employees, board members and or investors. All this indignation is worth spit from Obama, AIG is just another horse out of the barn.
Who could have anticipated this after the Merrill Lynch fiasco?
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