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The Secretary of the Treasury discusses the rule of law
The soon-to-depart Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner confirmed to Liaquat Ahamed of The National Review that his goal was to protect bankers:
… My own view was that it was going to be very hard, if not impossible to design a financial rescue that was going to be effective in protecting all the innocent victims hit by the crisis and still satisfy the completely understandable public desire for justice and accountability. Those things were in direct and tragic tension, never resolvable at that time.
I always felt that the only preoccupation for people in policy at the time should be to fix the problem as quickly as we could, as effectively as we could, and only after that would other things be possible, including how to figure out not just how to clean up the mess, but reform the financial system.
That’s just silly. There is no tension between protecting the innocent victims and locking up the criminals who caused the Great Crash. None. And his claim that he wanted to do anything for the “innocent victims” is laughable. The truth is what he told Elizabeth Warren and Neil Barofsky: he wanted to foam the runway with the financial corpses of the victims of mortgage and foreclosure fraud so that the banksters and the feral rich would have a soft landing. Geithner thinks us professional leftists who are outraged by the failure to prosecute banks and their criminal employees are short-sighted, if not stupid:
…I think that what really distinguishes countries in crisis are those that are lucky enough to have political leaders who are willing to take the brutal political cost of doing what’s necessary and those countries that waited and let the populist fires burn, or decided they were going to try to teach people a lesson and put populism ahead of other things.
So, it’s fine with him that there were no criminal prosecutions. The only relevant issue was the entire economy, and Geithner thinks he did great there:
I’m biased but I felt that in the basic strategy that the President embraced and that we put into effect, we did something that was incredibly effective for the broad interest of the economy and the financial system.
The results of that effectiveness are obvious, even if Geithner can’t grasp them. Unemployment is outrageously high. The middle class has been crushed by stagnant wages and huge losses in personal wealth, especially home equity. The poor are on the chopping block, with state after state trying to cut the meager assistance they provide and the President bent on cutting Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. Retirees see their savings dwindle under years of zero to negative real interest rates. The megabanks are bigger and more dangerous than ever.
That “broad interest of the economy” Geithner talks about is to insure that the feral rich pay no price, and are rewarded with ever-increasing personal wealth and income. Geithener and Lanny Breuer are joined at the hip in carrying out the Obama program of wealth protection at any cost, including the rule of law.
Photo by Medill DC under Creative Commons license
30 Comments
Why would he say anything else, He’s set for life SUCKERS .
Meanwhile Geithner’s friends over at the IMF are instructing Congress critters on how the austerity programs simply have to go through. Without them, then business people are just too uncertain to do a damn thing, and they will sit on their resolve to put Americans to work. So cut Social Security, cut Medicare, cut cut cut!
And the Congress critters just sit there listening.
He sounds like a criminal.
Economy is in great shape and all is well; let’s go skiing in Park City and take in some Sundance films (maybe we will see Redford). Yeah America, the greatest Country God ever created. /s
By that logic, Charles Manson and family should have gotten off and merely asked to sing Kumbayah while holding hands with their victim’s families.
What a smarmy this snake.
Geithner and Lanny Breuer? Let’s just be honest here, the entire Democratic Party is dedicated to wealth protection.
The offal of the o admin is so openly floating on the surface of the cesspool pond and proudly telling us how they have served their masters well. This is just to let us that they are now going out to their deserved rewards in high positions that will continue to sway the actions of the govt in a fascistic way. The intertwining of the govt is pretty complete now with the local “law enforcement” as their guard dogs. Not everyone is affected directly in terms of arrests and harassments, just those who protest the crushing of the 99% by the 1%.
What is keeping them from making the cuts which the deficit hawks want? Could it be that they have not figured out a way to snooker the American public into believing that the cuts were necessary? Or is it just that they cannot get enough military contractor graft in exchange for the freeing of the sequester military cuts? What is the side plate for the rich and the corporations in this?? Exempting repatriated income from taxes? Keeping corporate tax rates low?
I cannot believe that the big rip off of the social insurance programs is being held up just because Schumer cannot find a secret way to expedite a deal without democratic process being required. All of their phony stacked commissions called for ‘fast track’ powers which would obviate the people’s opposition to having their earned benefits stolen.
So how will this go down? More austerity talk? Maybe doing nothing makes money for these folks. The people are the ones who are losing everything while the politicians do nothing to help them. Geithner did nothing for the people while doing all he could for banks.
The indispensable man. Geitner is under the false assumption that the banking system consisting of the five largest banks are indispensable. Once you make that assumption, everything that he did can be rationalized.
Once you make that assumption, the Constitutionally required mandate for government of establishing Justice becomes meaningless for the masses.
Timme and Lanny should form a new consulting group, How to steal trillions and get away with it.
Imagine our surprise when Tim Geithner gets a cushy lifetime job as a “consultant” or a “board member” for one of the big banksters.
Go away now, Tim, you disgusting toadie, just go away.
Perhaps a clearer statement would be most all the representatives of the Unions and the Congress and the Administration who are supposed to represent the people actually represent the interests of the uber wealthy and their minions and the people can just go pound sand.
Geithner and his cronies are unimaginably arrogant and/or oblivious. Do these people really think we’re so naive as to think that there’s no other way this economic catastrophe could have been handled? (Hint: S & L crisis.)
Any ideas as to what Timmeh’s next gig might be?
Despicable.
Maybe Iceland could wipe that silly grin off his face.
The good guys: the people with honor, with valor, with values always seem to lose to the guys with financial connections, with situational ethics, with a lust affair with cashola, with a host of blind spots and mental maladies. This is in contrast with the wisdom stored in the public mind, under the banner of ” Where’s My Bailout? ” Mr. Geitner should be declared mentally unfit for office if he thinks people think of him as the the former and not the latter. He’s protected, as was Judas, by an Empire and class hierarchy willing to do the wrong thing at every turn to protect the interests of ” the money changers in the temple. ” He’s really nothing more than a Sadducean ” baller ” with the home court advantage of playing on Wall Street instead of Main Street. And, his owners also own the referees, to be sure. Mr. Geitner, go back quietly with Mr. Breuer, and tell your owners, ” mission accomplished your highnesses. ” You are what’s wrong with this country, sir, not what’s right or good.
This is absurd. Geitner is as they call them in the Mafia, a “made man” he’s has never had any interest in protecting the general economy. His job was and is very specific protect the gang that he’s part of, screw the losers ( the 90%) that aren’t insiders. Job well done Brownie as the saying goes! This F8cking guy has little the rest of his gang no conscience and is absolutely convinced himself he’s done no harm. When he arrives at the gates and St. Peter looks at his record he’ll be shown what his actions wrought and then he will be directed to the down elevator.
Geithner is not responsible for justice, Holder is.
Cheers Tim!
Here’s wishing you a large, inoperable, malignant growth.
Oh, what the hell: I’ve already used this illustration today anyway.
LOL
Here they go!
From Utah, out of the “Hatch”
The uniparty hath broken forth in the song of crows:
Austerity! Forever!
Geithner experienced brutal political cost? From whom? Certainly not those who put millions in the 2008 political coffers of his Boss, the same people who willl likely shower Geithner with millions for a job well done. Geithner’s not one to “put populism ahead of other things,” specifically putting in place things that are “incredibly effective” for the financial system.
This public disrace doesn’t even attempt at pretense.
Might as well have been said by Obama. Probably is said by Obama. Tim and his boss are the proverbial two peas.
out of respect for you masaccio, Jane, and the community, and a very real concern about getting locked up somewhere, I wont put my response to that in type
there’s all kinds of new thinking, fresh perspectives on sociopathy these days – and I can’t think of a better example – jesus, what a pig
maybe he thinks wall street will love him again as a ‘clerk’. I remember 2008/9 some ceo upset that timmeh as prez of NY fed would make decisions that they could not and were all p-o’d about ‘gov overreach’, too.
Today, Timmeh’s already puffed his resume and ready for his new office.
Good to know he thinks populism is a dirty word. Democracy must seem such a quaint concept for him and his buddies.
I wish to thank you for so many illuminating posts – I have learned a lot, new avenues of exploration are open, the arcane-to-me a little less daunting
I can go with that, too… as steam comes outta my ears.
Gah. Go away, Timmeh, you bother me…
Uh, Secretary Geithner? When you spoke about “the completely understandable public desire for justice and accountability,” you left out one thing.
Justice and accountability aren’t just completely understandable public desires. They are formally enacted public laws, passed by both the House of Representatives and Senate, and signed within ten days by the President of the United States.
Justice and accountability aren’t just good ideas to try out when they are convenient. They are the law.
You might check with your General Counsel for the details.
“I’m biased but I felt that in the basic strategy that the President embraced and that we put into effect, we did something that was incredibly effective for the broad interest of the economy and the financial system.”
–Tim Geithner, from the diary
That quote says it all. What he means by the economy and the financial system are the Wall Street banks and specifically Goldman-Sachs. Geithner’s fascist to the core, and so is his boss.
Did you see my diary on that weasel Lanny Breuer? He admits he talked to “experts” about the dangers of criminal prosecution. Don’t you assume that Tim Geithner was one of those experts warning about the dangers to the financial system for the last four years?
God I hate the two minute hate.