More People Blame Geithner for AIG Bonuses Than Bush

Interesting finding in the new Democracy Corps poll:

[N]early three-in-ten voters (29 percent) say that the AIG story raises no doubts at all in their mind about President Obama.

The same cannot be said for Geithner, as nearly half of voters (49 percent) report that the AIG scandal raises significant doubts, including nearly a quarter (24 percent) who say it raises extreme doubts about the Treasury Secretary. A majority of independent and moderate Republican voters alike report significant doubts about Secretary Geithner with 53 and 63 percent respectively reporting significant doubts.

I'm no pollster, but thinking back to the time when Summers and Geithner won the battle against tougher conditions for financial institutions, I'd say there's about a zero percent chance that Stan Greenberg released this without the blessing of his good friend David Axelrod.

Follow Jane Hamsher on Twitter: www.twitter.com/janehamsher

Comments

[Edmonsky]

There are those on the left who are opposed to Tim Geithner for the simple fact that he favors alternate plan that does not appeal to those who are in support of banks’ nationalization or receivership. There those who favor nationalizing banks for self-interests; they are those with sound academic credentials but are not sufficiently experienced as technocrats to serve as Treasury Secretary but instead are scheming for opportunities to serve on the boards of nationalized banks.

Previously, these academics were openly writing and pontificating how Geithner’s plan was not going to work. Today they are singing a different tune; which is, if the plan works, the banks stand to reap huge returns at the taxpayers’ expense. But here is the home truth.

The campaign that Geithner’s plan was not going to work was based on one factor. The factor being that the Congress cannot approve the trillions necessary to finance Geithner’s plan. But President Obama and his economic had another plan. The plan was to have Federal Reserve and FDIC finance the rescue plan of toxic assets without going through the Congress.

[Edmonsky]

Jane Hamsher has insisted on looking at herself instead of away from herself so that she can see many things ouside of the familiar. For instance, she is convinced that Summers and Geithner won the battle against tougher conditions for financial institutions favored by David Axelrod. David Axelrod is a trained journalist turned political consultant and has no business sitting at the table where fiscal and monetary policies are discussed because he is not formerly trained to understand the fundamental intricacies of the subject being deliberated on. If David Axelrod were to be present at such deliberation as an observer and prompted by his ignorance on the subject to interject, Geithner and Summer would have no option than to cut him off politely to remind him of his observer’s status.

A person that is closest to Obama in the economic team is Prof. Austan Goolsbee. He has been Obama’s economic adviser since his early forays into politics and both were on the academic staff of Univeristy of Chicago. President Obama consults David Axelrod on political matters and messaging. The sooner some of us stop these illogical conjectures the better for the entire progressive movements.

[johnie2xs]

Here's the danger. For the average person (by way of a poll) to give a reasoned determination as to the efficacy of a discipline such as the study of the "Macro- economics" when they can barely balance a check book is just ridiculous. I'm not particularly enamored with Giethner and Summers, both, but the proof has to be in the pudding. I understand the desire for "transparency" after what has transpired over the last eight years, but I, for one, am willing to put my trust in O, in equal measure to the lack of trust I had in W. The roads success are up to others to find, I don't have the answers. I trust O.

I think the biggest danger we face, in this economic crisis, centers around the "Federal Reserve". If ever there existed an "Economic Mafia", They are IT. To work around that entity and remain alive, is the trick. (Let me add to the long list of JFK assassination perpetrators, The Federal Reserve.) Within these parameters O is walking a very shaky tightrope.

Remember this. We actually pay a vig to the Bankster criminals for the privilege of their being in control of OUR money supply.

I'm not going to argue the point here, for any of you who think I wear a tinfoil hat. Do your own reading. Bone up on how we are enslaved by the banksters of the world. Remember this phrase;

"Industrial Feudalism". There in the answer, lay.

[NoSandwiches]

Not me!
My mantra for whatever has gone, goes wrong, and will go wrong is:
I blame Bush

Just found out today that my kid can no longer get any financial aid, including student loans to finish out college and get his degree. He has too many credits, mostly because he took running start and was able to get his AA loaded up wtih history credits, then went to the University and had to take a bunch of catch up work that he should have had in high school, like chemistry and physics in order to get his appied mathematics degree. It seems to me that they could cut some slack for a kid asked to make major life decisions at age 16.

If it werent for the poor economy, my husband wouldn't have been laid off and forced to take a part time retail job at 9 bucks and hour just to try to make ends meet.

repeat after me.

I


BLAME


BUSH

[texanna]

Since most people are aware that Geithner was part of the Wall Street Gang that helped gin up "The Sky is Falling" scenario back in Sept 2008 that led to the bailout and then subsequently was in on how the rules got formulated for said bailout and now is on the inside in the WH making sure his Big Money Buddies get what they think they deserve, it is not a surprise to find that most people are angry with him. Sooner or later, though, that anger will move up the chain of command to the person that has kept him in the game and we'll see just how much teflon Pres Obama has in his suits.

[nomobull]

more opinion criticism being passed out as fact based criticism enough

[SaintStasia]

AIG is primarily an insurance company. Let's imagine that this summer 3 major hurricanes strike Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina and California suffers an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.6 on the Richter scale. Tornado season is particularly fiece in the tornado belt and New Jersey and Virginia have earthquakes of 7.0 on the scale. Hasn't happened yet but both states have serious faultlines. Virtually every area of the country suffers from horrendous natural disasters.­..or yes Hawaii and a tsunami. Now we are talking billions, even trillions, of dollars of damage here. Property owners purchased insurance but the insurance companies miscalculated the risk involved and had more exposure than they had reserves needed to cover the losses. So now what?

Americans should be angry, but not at Geithner..­.he is really a minor player in this tragedy. They need to be furious with their own stupidy in allowing corporate America to rape them mercilessly for 35 years.
Tell me, can you support yourself on the minimum wage? Should you be happy about the fact that you work harder than any other worker in the world for wages that have been flatlined for over 8 years? I am out of words , but the financial, economic and monetary ignorance of Americans is truly amazing. The rich know how to taske care of themselves but the working class is perfectly unable to act in it's own best interest.

[Edmonsky]

SaintStasia:
Thank you for your incisive analogy. One is befuddled reading from those who ought to know better writing that the best thing would have been to allow AIG to go under without contending with its disastrous implications. Geithner’s sin is that he supported bailing out AIG as the President Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

AIG is not a bank and was not under the supervision of Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Federal Reserve Bank got involved because of the systemic risk the collapse of AIG portend to the world financial institutions. Those who are interested in unstanding the functions of Federal Reserve Bank of New York should go to this link and bone up. Blaming Geithner on the bailout shows intellectual gap in understanding his job classification and its chains of command.

[larry278]

It is time to get rid of Geithner & Summers. Since neither Spitzer nor Edwards are acceptable because of their erotic habits, it's time for Barack & Rahm to make nice with Mike Bloombrerg. Yes, it's past time to make nice with Mike. Bernanke isn't up to his job either. Maybe Barack & Rahm will have to find a couple of schlubs to fire to get Mike to move to DC from NYC. Mike might like a job where he replaces 5 tarnished, lack luster, mavens. Mike couldn't do any worse than the toxic 3 of Ben, Larry & Tim. It will be difficult to spin calling Mike in as reaching across the aisle since Mike has both Democratic & Republican leanings. Some say that Mike has supported & opposed every issue related to banking, finance, rebuilding the economy & can pass himself off as being agnostic on other issuses whichhave been discussed since 2001.
The time has come to ditch Geithner, Summers & Bernanke with or without Bloomberg joining team Obama. Maybe Bloomberg can find a way to clean up Spitzer & Edwards's erotic outlaw reputations. Seeing Hank Greenberg deal with a Spitzer advised prosecutor Fitz..of Chicago could be interesting. Barney Frank could use Spitzer's help & show Eliot how sluff off prejudices faced by erotic minorities.
Edwards might need to work in private practice for a year more. If Edwards reaches some big buck settlements AND collects them for his clients, he's in as the guy to find

[naschkatze]

I just made a comment on another post in answer to someone bragging about Obama's poll numbers and popularity. I said that people were angry as hell about Geithner and Summers and that someday they were going to wake up and make the connection. They are his appointees FFS.

[barackobama4prez]

people always want someone to blame for disasters.­...bush is an easy target but he's not around...s­o geithner and summers are next up. they aren't fishing with clean hands...so it's understand­able...but rational people like something called facts and evidence.

[calchala]

Another Hamsher article, another attack on Geithner. Listen, I'm not willing to give Geithner all of the blame, although Summers is a very problematic person in the administration. I think Jane, You're looking for evidence, ANY EVIDENCE, that Geithner should be fired. It's tenuous at best to assume this is the full account.

[vinny]

maybe, im reading it wrong, but hamsher seems to questioning the perception that this is geithner's plan as opposed to obama's plan. why would people dislike geithner more so than obama over the AIG story? in other words, where do people think the buck stops?

[naschkatze]

I don't think the evidence is tenuous at all, and she is perfectly right that he should be fired. I like an expression someone else used the other day that Geithner was "re-inflating the bubble" and another who said that the administration had "no exit strategy" to this bailout.

[KillTheMessenger]

There was a time when people blamed witches for making the hail that destroyed their crops. Get over it. What most people think is irrelevant most of the time because it is based on hearsay. All I have to do is to look at all the nonsense on Huffpo to know that basic economics overtaxes the average level of education of most people by far. Which is all fine, by the way. What is not so fine is the fact that most people do not realize that they are out of their element and that they do not inform themselves to replace their emotional reactions to the topic with an intellectual response.

[iplaw]

Maybe Americans are not savvy enough to sift through the machinations of the companies and individuals who spin (and manufacture) crisis in order to enrich themselves, but this time they seem to be able to at least smell the rat in spite of officials who either cannot understand the situation or are complicit. Sometimes instinct and intellect reach consensus.

Most of you don't remember in 2004 on CSPAN when Greenspan allayed "liberal" economists worries about a housing bubble by stating that high "transaction costs" made a housing bubble impossible.

[Maxbyte]

I will easily agree that Summers is a zero for the Administration.

But I'm not sure about Geithner. He is definitely of the capitalist persuasion, but would we want anything else? I do not have an ounce of respect for Paulson, and I know Geithner was one of Paulson's confederates. But some reasonably good broad-based economic news is emerging, and I do not believe it is a "natural" market correction. Two months ago all of the economists were still singing 'ding dong doomsday' refrains. Now they're shortening the timeline for a likely recovery by a year or more.

So I'm still watching Geithner and am currently hoping he can continue to make the transition to growth fairly quickly. Would I want him to be President - ever? That's a big NO.

[JimR]

Another day, another HuffPo hit piece on Geithner.

[Drdemocrat]

Who cares. There are more important things to worry about. 5 soldiers were killed in Iraq. Somalian piriates have an American hostage. Unemployment is 8.5% and rising.

The AIG bonus story is 2 weeks ago.

[edwcorey]

Plenty of people care. There's an over-arching theme in play here, where Wall St. is not held to account. The CIA is not held to account. Bush and Cheney are not held to account. The people responsible for the nation's woes are partying like it's 1999. The items you mention are fallout.

[iplaw]

50,000 Americans die in auto accidents each year, what is your point? People are going to die, if you know someone that can stop that then start a religion. As for Unemployment, $1,000,000,000,000+ in spending is about as relevant as it gets (thats over $3000 per American).