How do you feel about Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner?

He’s a solid pick, lots of experience. But I can’t deny his performance so far has left a lot to be desired. In fairness though, he is the ONLY one installed so far, they haven’t been able to get him all the supporting staff and subordinates he needs. Personally, I’m going to give him another few months of leeway and if his performance doesn’t improve, I’ll begin to question why he’s still there.

He’s pretty solid but there are 16 other appointments in that department that Obama has left empty so far. Isn’t filling those posts something that should be handled right away since the economy is so bad?

No, I wish Obama had gone outside the Wall Street fold. I feel he is listening too much to insiders. The fox minding the hen house.

@Marina : I agree with you 100%.

Obama is so stupid. So, so stupid.

@ubersiren Well, I wouldn’t that far, but this aspect of his administration has disappointed me.

Oh, to clear up, I wasn’t saying that Marina thinks Obama is stupid. That’s all me. I’m the one who thinks he’s retarded.

Given his voting record while in Congress, we knew that he was for bailouts and stimulus packages. He voted for every single one Bush proposed, and now he’s in charge, doing the same stuff. We knew from his campaign that he votes and speaks to whomever is in his highest paying special interest groups. Everyone who voted for him knowing this is getting what they deserve. I’m glad he’s been so cordial with Iran and Venezuela. That’s about where my praise for him ends. He’s been nice, and that’s it. If anyone paid any attention at all to his history and not just his inspirational speeches, you’d know that these financial decisions have been his norm all along. Nobody should be surprised by this. I blame him for creating this mess by voting for it in Congress, and I blame him for continuing it in office. People say to give him a chance because he hasn’t been in office long. But he has made decisions in that short time and those have been devastating ones. You can’t say he just hasn’t had the time when he’s messing up, then take all sorts of credit when he does one good thing for every 10 bad. Again, he’s let us know from the beginning of his political career that these are the decisions he would be making. His voters can only blame themselves.

Sorry for the slight rant.

slight ?

@ubersiren – The only bailout he approved that Bush also supported was the Bank Bailout, which was supported almost unanimously. And highest paying special interest groups? You have NO idea what you’re talking about. He regularly went to small scale events that had NO high paying benefactors, I know this because I attended a lot of them. And frankly, I think that his policies so far are good ideas. The stimulus and such in my opinion will probably save our economy (like similar spending plans have multiple times in our history).

I GLADLY take full responsibility for his actions, cuz I think they’re going to work.

Just because he went to small scale events doesn’t mean he didn’t take money from larger contributers.

Read this. And don’t tell me I have NO idea what I’m talking about.

Stimulus packages won’t save our economy. Printing/ borrowing money for us to spend won’t fix anything. If we earned the money, then invested it that would be a different story. But that’s not what we’re doing. In the past (like the big stimulus packages borrowed in the 1800s I’m assuming you’re referring to) the money was invested, not spent.

Obama is listening to this Tim Geithner fellow, who is buddy buddy with people like former SOT Paulson, from the Bush admin. They are doing the same exact things. This is just fact. More of the same fixes nothing.

And just because support for the bailouts was almost unanimous doesn’t make it right. If all of Congress jumped off a bridge, would you? The people who opposed the bill are independent thinkers. Obama is not. He is no leader.

This new Geitner plan seems to be a nice packaged approach with the appearance of a government sponsored initiative. Is it a bail out or government backed initiative to share with private sector the bad debt? I really can’t see what the difference is other than the appearance of it not being a complete handout. We’re still bringing the “security” to the table. Geitner on his plan in the Wall Street Journal:

“The Public-Private Investment Program is better for the taxpayer than having the government alone directly purchase the assets from banks that are still operating and assume a larger share of the losses. Our approach shares risk with the private sector, efficiently leverages taxpayer dollars, and deploys private-sector competition to determine market prices for currently illiquid assets. Simply hoping for banks to work these assets off over time risks prolonging the crisis in a repeat of the Japanese experience.”

It sounds to me that the banks have basically told the government how to proceed if we want them to play. We need to magically clean up their bad ledger sheets.
Furthermore I can’t imagine the private sector assuming any risk that wasn’t backed by the government or collateral in the form of actual real estate. What does anyone make of Geitner’s plan from the Wall Street Journal? (Page may be slow to load) I’d love to hear your opinions.

He’s referred to as “Tiny Tim”, in financial circles, an unflattering comparison to the character of the same name in Dicken’s Christmas Carol. I dunno Wall St. was all excited about him and as the financial markets were melting at the time I decided to give him chance.

His public-private partnership deal is just retarded…of course I’ll probably buy into it as the government is guaranteeing 93 cents of every private investment dollar, have to check the fine print though, but its an almost foolproof way to make easy money via government subsidies.|

PS many of those toxic assets are backed by real estate, very over priced real estate, which is why they are toxic.

So I’ll buy some when they are first issued and hold them for a while, mark my words they will increase in value at first, then peak at which point I’ll sell…take the money and run run run away.

@HarmonyAlexandria
So do you feel that this will just continue the roller coaster ride with a little initial short lived euphoria?

@SeventhSense
It’s a very complicated question with an even more complicated answer and I’m on vacation this week damn it (so of course wis.dm had to announce it was though).

Short easy answer, the current stock rally is wishful thinking, the real economy is still on the decline and won’t bottom till Q2 at the earliest, and real estate still has another 20% to fall.

I could care less.

@HarmonyAlexandria
You’re more optimistic than me.
@Kevisaurus
The banking industry thanks you. They’re counting on such apathy.

@ubersiren Obama’s biggest contributor were the people who donated $20 or less. I didn’t say he didn’t take money from large interest groups, but he doesn’t obey them like masters. And you clearly don’t understand how a stimulus package works. The ones that have saved our economy multiple times in the past spent money to put people to work and give them jobs. Such as the end of the great depression, it was massive government expenditure that gave people jobs and money to spend that spurred the economy back from the dead.

And that you’ve said Geithner and Obama are doing the same things as Paulson and Bush shows me you’re either not paying attention, or you’re living in a dream world. If you watched even one of the major news networks (Fox, CNN, MSNBC) for a day, you’d know how wrong that is.

I didn’t say necessarily that I even thought the bank bailout was right (and i’m very unsure of the bank bailout, though it was sadly a probable necessary evil), what I DID say is that it’s the ONLY economic related legislation that both Obama and Bush supported (FACT), which corrected your misinformation that Obama supported all of Bush’s plans.

And for a guy who’s not a leader, he sure shows all of the same qualities of some of the best leaders in the history of human civilization. Oh, and he IS the leader of the free world. So yah, he’s got that going for him too.

@westy81585 : First of all, you can stop with the personal attacks. I clearly don’t know what I’m talking about? I’m living in a dream world? That’s not how we talk to each other on here. We can have debates in a respectful manner. Leave your immature insults at the door.

You said he had NO high paying benefactors. Are you now rescinding this statement?

I clearly don’t understand how a stimulus package works?

Tell you what. You explain to me how you think it works. Then watch this video.

It’s a long video, but replace the hour you’d spend watching the news this evening with this hour long video.

As for your major news networks? They’re all crap. Each one is as biased as the next, albeit in different directions.

I’ve lost the will to talk about this anymore with you. There’s just no room for this type of ignorant blame game in my day right now.

I would like to ask you to always question your leaders. ALWAYS. Obama is not the answers to our problems. Neither is anyone else that was on the ballots last year. It’s ridiculous to think that one man and his appointed staff knows what works for the entire US population of individuals.

If you read my original statement, you will find that I NEVER said he had no high paying benefactors. I said that he regularly attended events that had none present or supporting it (think campus meetings, town halls, small organization meetings, that type of thing). Here I’ll even give you a direct quote from my post…

“And highest paying special interest groups? You have NO idea what you’re talking about. He regularly went to small scale events that had NO high paying benefactors, I know this because I attended a lot of them.”

So you should probably learn to read first, and not just read the words and imagine them to be what you want, but actually take in what they are and mean.

And the stimulus works like this. The government expends large sums of money to do public works projects, or to ensure that public employees can remain on payroll (or can be hired), tax cuts (to the huge scale they’re at in this stimulus thanks to the republicans), upgrading our infrastructure, advancing our research/chemistry/sciences/technology, etc. This massive expenditure, simply put, puts people to work. It ensures that a solid base of people have jobs and hence MONEY. Those people can then afford to pay their bills, put food on the table, buy nice things (tv’s, games, cars, what have you). Them paying their bills and for food and nice things gives OTHER people work to do, who in turn can now pay their bills and for their food, etc. And it goes so on and so forth. THAT is how the stimulus will work, and it’s how all the other stimulus plans in our past have worked.

(and the major news networks, Fox and MSNBC are biased obviously, but CNN is pretty fair and level headed)

Hmmm. Yeah I did misread that. I apologize. I honestly did think you wrote something else. And again with the fucking insults! I should learn to read? I misread something, and I take full blame! Can you make any fucking point without PERSONALLY attacking me? What a prick you are! If you had any fucking merit, maybe. But you obviously have nothing of value to say, so you insult me. The weakest form of debate. These types of insults don’t allow for a reasonable debate whatsoever and have no productive results. I don’t need to take senseless abuse from some close minded idiot on the internet. So, I’m done with your immature ass.

That’s how a stimulus has worked in the past. That’s not how it’s being proposed now. It’s being spent, and not invested. You should seriously consider watching the video I provided if you think the stimulus plan being proposed will work.

stops following

So…....................how about that Tim Geitner?

The legacy banks are insolvent. We are the ones holding their bag of…..!

Picking Geithner was a mistake (but Obama cannot ask a FOURTH cabinet pick to resign/withdraw). He is a tax cheat and to pick a tax cheat to head the Treasury is a symbolic disaster, period. The notion that he is “the only one for the job” is ludicrous. With 300 million people in the US it is diffciult to believe there was no better pick. So far wehave spent ver 4 trillion dollars in teh last 12 months and the economy has declined the entire time. Geithner was the “mastermind” behind the first TARP, which did not stop the slide and cost $700 billion and the secoond TARP costing hundreds of billions more. Including the omnibus bill and the proposed budegt we will spend nealy $8 trillion dollars in under 2 years, which is mor ethan all the debt Bush racked up while in office. It is reckless and we should all question the real motive behind the spending.

BTW – only two cabinet picks have withdrawn in the last 28 years before Obama’s administration, when three picks withdrew in one month!

It is like having the fox watch the hen house.