Tag: Tim Geithner

Today on Tout TV Jim Cramer tossed softball after softball to Tim Geithner all while contorting himself into odd positions to kiss Timmy Geithner’s ass. The interview here:

Geithner (via creditwritedowns):

“I take human life seriously.  I’m obsessed with it: death, existence, bankruptcy, God, mark-to-fantasy-values, interpersonal relationships (mostly with bankers and my self-reflective consciousness).  Unlike Woody Allen, I can’t play Dixieland, so I feel uniquely isolated in an indifferent, if not hostile universe; I was simply born into this financial chaos of logical, ontological, and moral non-structure; and while my existence is inexplicable, I face up to it; I take full responsibility for bailing out the profanely wealthy at the expense of the vast majority of humanity.  Life is hard, and inscrutable to rational or empirical scrutiny, so I create my own reality, in deeds.  God and I can’t both be free.  That’s my facticity.  That’s my authenticity.  That’s my freedom.  That is my will, bitchez.  I have no idea what I’m doing, but I decided.  I acted.  When I choose, I choose for the whole world.  It’s absurd, but I open Pandora’s box, in order to create myself.  We’re all terrified about that, but I owe you that much.  Every ethical act I perform is the point of no return.  If I cut Isaac’s throat on God’s command, that will be my decision.  I take human life seriously.”

That possible interpretation of Geithner’s existential epiphany is my roundabout way of asking, “What bong-farts in Hell did Geithner toke from Bernanke’s ass to utter such, “We’re going, like, existential” nonsense?  

Actually, I know what he really means:

Nation Realizes Money Just A Symbolic, Mutually Shared Illusion

WASHINGTON-The U.S. economy ceased to function this week after unexpected existential remarks by Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke shocked Americans into realizing that money is, in fact, just a meaningless and intangible social construct.

What began as a routine report before the Senate Finance Committee Tuesday ended with Bernanke passionately disavowing the entire concept of currency, and negating in an instant the very foundation of the world’s largest economy.

“Though raising interest rates is unlikely at the moment, the Fed will of course act appropriately if we…if we…” said Bernanke, who then paused for a moment, looked down at his prepared statement, and shook his head in utter disbelief. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. None of this-this so-called ‘money’-really matters at all.”

“It’s just an illusion,” a wide-eyed Bernanke added as he removed bills from his wallet and slowly spread them out before him. “Just look at it: Meaningless pieces of paper with numbers printed on them. Worthless.”

According to witnesses, Finance Committee members sat in thunderstruck silence for several moments until Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) finally shouted out, “Oh my God, he’s right. It’s all a mirage. All of it-the money, our whole economy-it’s all a lie!”

[snip]

Timmy “sizzle chest” G, also known as “Timmy the Moocher,” “Two-timing Tim,” “Hey, you little bastard, where’s my wallet,” “Timmy the Stress Test,” “Timothy the Treasury Mouse,” “Hey, who stole my cheese?” “Geithner the Purse Lightener,” “‘T’ that rhymes with ‘P’ that stands for ‘pool,'” “Gangsta Rap,” “Who stole the cheese?  I wanna know who cut the cheese!” “The Invisible Regulator,” “G is for Growth,” “Fake it ’til you Make it,” “Tricky Tim,” “Humbug Jive,” “Shell Game,” “Dirty Trick,” “Swindler’s List,” “The Fiddling Fed,” “The Treasurer’s Measurer,” “Bill O’Goods,” “The Two-Fer Spoofer,” “Run Around Tim,” “Too Money,” “Fictional Assets,” “Mark T. Fantasy,” “Timmy Too Bigs,” “Turbo Tim,” “Timmy the Greek,” “Fail-safe,” “Don’t Stop Me Now,” “Chopper Pilot,” “Flim-Flam,” “Shock Doc,” and “Jelly, You Broke My Heart, Geithner…”  Smack!  Smack!  You wanna fresh one?  –  was apparently over-seeing financial fraud at Lehman before they went kaput.

Tangled webs make us sad and frustrated.  And vengeful.

Update

Oh, fun.  A plug for Yves:

Update 2: Hell, just go read bobswern for content:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

File this under change we can believe in.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said Thursday it was bringing civil charges against senior Bank of America executives, including former company CEO Ken Lewis, for their role in the company’s controversial purchase of Merrill Lynch…

…The lawsuit contends that the bank’s management team understated the losses at Merrill in order to get shareholders to approve the deal, then subsequently overstated the firm’s willingness to terminate the merger to regulators weeks later in order to get $20 billion of additional aid from the federal government.

Anyone know why they are not bringing criminal charges?  ‘Cause I’d like to see some people go to jail.  Is it that bringing criminal charges against rich people is gauche?  Or something else?   Oh, wells.  The important thing is that it’s a friggn’ indictment of high-level wrong-doing.

I have always hated Darrell Issa.  I live in California and Darrell Issa is largely the reason that we now have Arnold “will my term ever end?” Schwarzenegger in the governor’s hot tub.   He’s also, quite simply, a scumbag.

But remiscent of the Bush years, when I found myself agreeing more with Pat “I’m also a scumbag” Buchanan, than I did with most “mainstream” Democrats like, well, almost all of them, I now want to pat Scumbag Issa on the back.

Why?

Because he’s come out with this:

Geithner’s Fed tried to keep sweet deal for banks a secret

The controversy surrounding Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s role in the 2008 Wall Street bailouts was ramped up Thursday with the revelation of emails that show the New York Federal Reserve — then run by Geithner — pressured insurance giant AIG to withhold information about payments the company made to its creditors.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) obtained emails between AIG employees showing that the company had planned to disclose in its filings to the SEC that it had paid 100 cents on the dollar to creditors like Goldman Sachs and other banks, but “the New York Fed crossed out the reference,” Bloomberg News reports.

AIG has received $183 billion in taxpayer relief. The news that the New York Fed attempted to keep from the public how that money was spent will likely increase political opposition to Geithner’s appointment as Treasury Secretary.

The Bloomberg.com article is here.

Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, then led by Timothy Geithner, told American International Group Inc. to withhold details from the public about the bailed-out insurer’s payments to banks during the depths of the financial crisis, e-mails between the company and its regulator show.

AIG said in a draft of a regulatory filing that the insurer paid banks, which included Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Societe Generale SA, 100 cents on the dollar for credit-default swaps they bought from the firm. The New York Fed crossed out the reference, according to the e-mails, and AIG excluded the language when the filing was made public on Dec. 24, 2008. The e-mails were obtained by Representative Darrell Issa, ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The New York Fed took over negotiations between AIG and the banks in November 2008 as losses on the swaps, which were contracts tied to subprime home loans, threatened to swamp the insurer weeks after its taxpayer-funded rescue. The regulator decided that Goldman Sachs and more than a dozen banks would be fully repaid for $62.1 billion of the swaps, prompting lawmakers to call the AIG rescue a “backdoor bailout” of financial firms.

“It appears that the New York Fed deliberately pressured AIG to restrict and delay the disclosure of important information,” said Issa, a California Republican. Taxpayers “deserve full and complete disclosure under our nation’s securities laws, not the withholding of politically inconvenient information.”

Will this become a mainstream story?   Well, you’d think so, wouldn’t you?  After all, it paints a “Democrat” in a negative light, and it’s being pushed by a Republican.

But we’re talking about Banksters here, and they don’t play by the rules.   They run the place.  

All these people need to be in jail.