First off, I don't think that Geithner speaks in what you referred to as double-speak at all. I think that it is pretty clear that he is a market fundamentalist. He still believes in the markets. Furthermore, not only does he believe in the markets and marketplace, but he is a pragmatist as well . . . willing to do whatever it takes to get the ship right side up again, should market strategies fail. You appear to point a lot of "fingers" at Geithner, yet you provide no evidence that is supported by fact as to how he has failed the American people when it comes to his job as Treasury Secretary. And as far as credit default swaps are concerned, you are sadly mistaken if you think that Geithner created an unregulated and non-transparent market for them. You can blame Phil Gramm and his "Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000" for that. I strongly suggest that you do some homework. You need to understand what the role of the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke is as opposed to the role of the Treasury Secretary. I think that you are unable to see the distinction, and as a result your argument regarding Geithner is not clear, nor is it supported by factual evidence . . . other than just calling him out as a former employee of Goldman Sachs which in fact he never was.
Regardless of anyone's personal opinion regarding Geithner's policies; policies that were largely set in motion before he arrived at Treasury, Mr. Brady's question put to Geither was absurd; No, it was worse than absurd, it was asinine! Mr. Geither is an Department of Treasury professional, his concern should not be with political polls. In fact he is supposed to be isolated from political pressures and make his decisions on what in his professional opinion is the best course of action, regardless of public opinion. It is the responsibility of Mr. Brady and other elected public servants from the President on down to take public opinion into account in their decisions. It is Mr. Geithner's job to use his professional knowledge to run the Treasury Department. I don't blame Geithner for snapping back at such an asinine question; one obviously motivated by the Congressman's uncontrolled urge to grandstand on National television. The Congressman's follow-up line of questioning regarding Geithner's role as NY Fed Chairman, while fair, was not germane, and again serves no present purpose other than political grandstanding. We deserve better from our congressmen.
But that is the whole point. Brady knows that Geithner no longer has the support from the democrats, who are just as mad as hell as the republicans, since Geithner is in reality no different from Henry Paulson. BTW was Geithner ever a democrat? No! So what are Republicans bitching about?
Get over it liberals? How do you know he is a liberal? Or are you making an overarching assumption? Bush f***d America up big time! Is Obama helping? Yeah he is by setting things straight again. Do people not like the healthcare plan? Absolutely! But it is the only rational thing to do. I live in a country where the entire health care system is private. BUT the catch is that the government negotiates the base fees and requires everybody to have health care. And guess what we pay less than the US and have better healthcare. The reason why you need that is that I speak to so many American's who say, "Oh I don't need health care because I am healthy." The reason why everybody has to pay into healthcare is because when you are old you cannot afford. Thus to keep costs down everybody pays in and thus gets coverage. EVEN though as a young person you most likely will not need it. Health care is not like car insurance. Because with car insurance you can go an entire life without needing it. But you will need healthcare at some point in your life.
If this is the caliber of "treasury professional" the country is stuck with, I would say we are in a heap of trouble. Congressmen are accountable to their districts and one would assume all the anger is coming from the heartland of America (ie. Brady's constituents). Geithner on the other hand is an appointed toad and lackey of the administation who couldn't get elected little league president. I agree, he should resign.
If you donât have a balanced view you get a biased view and it becomes an unobjective view. On 10/27/09 it was reported by Bloomberg news that "geitner arranged for goldman sacs ,societe generale, and deutsche bank to receive full payment on credit default swaps they had purchased rather than 40 cents on the dollar insurance giant aig proposed. This has cost the American taxpayers at least approximately 13 billion dollars at the time of the deal. Due to the decrease in value of these deritives it is now estimated that the total cost of bank favoritism is at least 35 billion dollars to the American tax payer. This deal contributed to the more than 14 billlion dollars that over 18 months was handed to Goldman sacs , whose former chairman , Stephen Friedman, was chairman of the board of directors of the new york fed when the decision was made." Tim geitner was head of the new york fed at the time. I m not positive but i''l agree that it doesnt appear that geitner worked for gs but i beleive he did an internship or something for them . i stand corrected. However , he has worked with everyone that has worked for gs ,im sure you could see how we could get confused.
You can find the contact info for any Congressman or Senator here: http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml Give those jackasses an earfull!!