Geithner

Geithner Backs Off China currency manipulation

Surprise, surprise. Treasury Secretary Geithner backed off the well known and well documented currency manipulation by China. Anyone believe that's because China now owns the United States?

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner pushed Group of Seven officials to soften criticism of China last month after his accusation that the nation was “manipulating” the yuan strained ties with the U.S.’s second- biggest trading partner, said a person briefed on the matter.

G-7 finance ministers and central bankers on Feb. 14 welcomed “China’s fiscal measures and continued commitment to move to a more flexible exchange rate.” By contrast, the group in April 2008 pressed for “accelerated appreciation” of the yuan.

Is it time to fire Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke?

A lot of serious people are questioning the Obama economic team. Paul Krugman has accused the administration of dithering. Henry Blodget is not feeling like the ship of state is under control. Willem Buiter feels that the Fed is working at cross purposes to correcting the fundamental problem. And Ralph Nader, perhaps the last principled liberal left in the US, is questioning the sanity of it all.

TARP Won't Work - Bank of America

Well, gee wiz Bank of America, could you have said this before you accepted $35 billion dollars of U.S. taxpayer money.

Bloomberg reports:

The U.S. Treasury’s bank-rescue plan won’t repair the financial system or revive credit markets, Bank of America Corp. strategist Richard Bernstein said as he recommended avoiding the industry’s shares

On the other hand, it appears Bank of America is pushing for more acquisitions...

ya know if it's too big to fail maybe it's a grand idea to not make it bigger.

Treasury Secretary Geithner Overrules on TARP reforms

Aren't you glad this guy is in charge? I'm just shaking my head reading about the guy who blamed TurboTax first actions as Treasury Secretary.

According to the New York Times

The Obama administration’s new plan to bail out the nation’s banks was fashioned after a spirited internal debate that pitted the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, against some of the president’s top political hands.

In the end, Mr. Geithner largely prevailed in opposing tougher conditions on financial institutions that were sought by presidential aides, including David Axelrod, a senior adviser to the president, according to administration and Congressional officials.

Mr. Geithner, who will announce the broad outlines of the plan on Tuesday, successfully fought against more severe limits on executive pay for companies receiving government aid.

Sheila Bair, Not Geithner for Treasury Secretary

Jim Cramer says the right Treasury Secretary is Sheila Bair, not Tim Geithner.

Listed were issues from sounding like Fredo, not giving specifics on what to do on the financial crisis, the fact that many of these failures happened while Geithner was New York Fed President, the fact he was in on the original bail out, did not pay his taxes, even used Turbo Tax on his taxes (at least he now knows that program sucks!)...
but more that Sheila Bair understands we need "bottom up" stimulus and must stem foreclosures to having a much stronger regulatory philosophy.

Then, Cramer claims Geithner, while wrong and weak must be approved.

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