Sunday, March 29, 2009

The Big Geithner Mystery

I've been up and down on Geithner, but the truth is that we just don't have any idea what the guy is doing. And I don't mean that in a bad way. He could be in the grips of an ideology that causes him to be unduly helpful to bank executives. Or not. Since the path he's taken so far is the way you'd go whether you wanted to run big giveaways or nationalization, there's really no way to tell.

I'm impressed by the argument that we have to get legitimate prices for all the securities prior to nationalizing banks if we want to do it without a tremendous lawsuit. The only way to do that is to actually have some of the securities be bought and sold. If banks are insolvent according to those prices, then we can shut them down.

1 comment:

corvus said...

I watched him on This Week earlier today, and emerged it feeling a little more reassured. He is most definitely not a politician, which I find refreshing somehow, though he is most definitely getting down the talking point tactic. He sounds like he knows what he is talking about and has an awareness of his critics and, thought not an straight answer to them, at least a willingness to justify his disagreement. One bit I found revealing was when he laughed uneasily and thanked Stephanopolis after Steph pointed out he has been a public servant all his life. I think the line that he is a stooge of Wall Street really gets to him.

The main thing I took away from it is that he really is pushing for more out of Wall Street than he is getting credit for, but he just isn't doing what Krugman wants, which means none of the camps lining up on either side agree with him. Personally, I'm rooting for him, because well, what else am I gonna do?