Did Tim Geithner really say something that dumb?
Wednesday, February 23, 2011 at 3:51PM It's been at least a week or two (or maybe I've just been paying attention to other things that he doesn't appear to be noticing), since Tim Geithner reminded us how little he understands (or cares) about - everything. But, his Bloomberg Breakfast statement this morning, just nailed it.
"The global economy is in a much stronger position to handle rising oil prices than it was in 2008 when crude shot up to a record US$147.27 a barrel in New York... Central banks have a lot of experience in managing these things.”
I mean, really ?!? What part of the global economy basking in the stability of its strength would that be, Tim?
The part uprising in the streets, in nations where a third of the population lives in utter poverty? The part getting kicked out of homes, while lenders stash their subsidization money with the Fed, and get interest on it? The part that has all but stopped searching for employment, as the pool of applicants drowns the drop of available jobs? The part that can't afford to eat? The part being asked to give up their right to collective bargaining, so that the part that collectively bargains constantly (under the corporate collective bargaining label 'lobbyists') can defund state and federal revenues while chewing on unnecessary tax breaks?
What part?
A significant chunk of the Middle East and Northern Africa is in revolt against corrupt governments and soul-destroying economic conditions - chief amongst those, a hopeless level of unemployment, particularly for the growing youth populations in those regions (and by the way, Tim - also in our own country), as well as a paralyzing financial chokehold unleashed by record high food and agricultural prices and rising oil ones. No, Tim, the global economy doesn't need more pain.
But wait. Tim, maybe you've got a point about crisis management. Central banks, especially ours, are really good at managing crises on behalf of - banks. They are brilliant at manifesting any required amount of money to subsidize the crisis creators, and patting themselves on the back when that money pumps up stock market prices, corporate cash reserves, and commodity costs. And, when this wall of 'so-called recovery' that you talk about, shows fractures you strive to conceal, due to the reality of an anemic, depressed economy, our central bank is excellent at springing to action. Bernanke just lobs a QE maneuver to inflate the value of our debt and deflate the value of our currency, much the same way the ECB moans a bit, each time a Greece, or an Ireland, or a Portugal begs for a reprieve from the international capital regime that colluded with their local banking systems to trash their citizen economies.
And you, Tim, so heroically helped our central bank manage the crisis, as the Treasury department issued $4 trillion of debt (in two years!) while now, nervously talking about budget spending cuts and deficit reduction and hoping no-one will remember your part in the financial imbalance that is our national economy. This, in co-hoots with a reckless Federal Reserve determined to pretend that the cheap money it continues to pump into the speculative class has nothing to do with the inflation in commodity prices it refuses to acknowledge, and that the trillions of dollars manufactured to enable our negligent, accountability-immune (h/t to the magnificent Matt Taibbi) banking system to remain functional was no hardship to our country, whereas say, advocating the raising of taxes and revenue seeking measures on those recipients would be.
Yeah. Nothing like management experience.
Reader Comments (3)
Paid professional liars who's job is entirely about buying as much time as possible for those transitioning assets out of $USD and into precious metals, physical assets - machinery/farmland/etc., Eastern currencies and anything else non-western paper. His job is to keep everyone at the USD table for as long as possible. Everyone must collectively walk away from their game. Stop feeding the "Fed.", JP Morgue, Goldman Sucks, Banco d'America/Merry Lynching, Monsanto et al. Take the best of the West and head East, I say. Even sheep will move to greener pasture...if trees could walk, walk they would. Westerner's, so materialistic and short-sighted, refuse to change/move even in the face of physical castrophy (Katrina) or economic tsumani, had better start considering history: http://www.sovereignman.com/expat/lessons-from-the-fall-of-rome/ and refine that plan B.
Keep up the good fight!
-Pete
Wow, but in keeping with the Kissinger & Associates, George H. W. Bush appointee to the Treasury Department (and a major "screw you" to all those stenographers out there who keep reporting Geithner and Summers were first appointed by the Clinton Admiistration, that was a re-appointment) and NY Fed chair when that $8.7 billion went missing from those Iraqi reconstruction funds [Hint: Geithner's best friend forever, Daniel Zelikow, was the JPMorgan Chase managing director overseeing that contract].
Matt Taibbi's latest article in the Rolling Stone (Why Isn't Wall Street In Jail?) is a must read, a continuation of his outstanding series of articles on the Wall Street Banksters and their endless perfidy.
But seriously, he could have just as easily written an article entitled Why Isn't the US Senate In Jail? or Why Isn't The US Supreme Court In Jail? or any number of similarly titled articles.
But most of all, he could have written a column titled, Why Isn't America In Jail? just as well.
Too often we hear these stories as discrete, unconnected events by the US media, assuming they are even reported at all.
Just several months ago, back in December, the Senate took a voice vote, so that there would be no written record of how the individual senators had voted, which passed unanimously. The outcome of this unanimous voice vote was to exempt the banksters from any and all criminal prosecution for the endless crimes they had perpetrated on the rest of us, both directly with their multitude of foreclause fraud and outright robbery, and the countless other crimes, leading to mass unemployment, and removal of the country's, and the world's, wealth and savings.
Thankfully, Obama vetoed this horrendous legislation --- one of the few actions he has taken while in office of which I approve and what one would normally expect of someone who claims to be a democrat!
But reality dictates that we not forgote the other 95 percent of his neocon actions to date!
And there's that judge in Pennsylvania who criminally, and most amorally and evilly, sentenced all those kids to jail so in return of payment from those who ran those private prisons for juveniles. That judge probably is representative of at least two-thirds of judges in America today!
And one need not review all those criminal and predatory legal decisions handed down by the US Supreme Court; suffice to say THEY should be in jail as well.
And we have those wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Obama "hedging his bets" --- always awaiting to see what side the revolution falls on before espousing the side of the people!
Definitely Wall Street should be in jail, but the list of those who should follow grows larger by the day.
Here, here.
Excellent post.