I have never been a fan of Timothy Geithner. As his tenure unfolds, I am even less of a fan. In fact, I believe that President Obama should seek independent counsel outside the bastions of the privileged, where the crisis-beleaguered Obama’s financial advice seems to be centered, and recognize that, in effect, his appointed Treasury Secretary Geithner represents Wall Street, not us, and should resign.
For the most part, I think that President Obama has taken the right direction, but it is quite obvious now that Geithner is steering him toward a Wall Street agenda. Considering that this financial monolith was created through permissive and friendly policies of several presidents and Congresses, our leaders have a lot invested while Wall Street still wields almost tyrannical power.
Timothy Geithner has proven in the past -- and especially now – that he is a loyal lord in their power fiefdom.
For that reason, Geithner was a mistake. For Obama, it was like appointing the Fox to guard the nation’s financial house of chickens.
According to a recent Wall Street Journal report, Timothy Geithner, as President of the NY Fed, granted N.Y. Fed Chairman Stephen Friedman a conflict of interest waiver to purchase Goldman Sacks stock, now worth over $13 million. When Friedman purchased the stock, he knew it was in violation of Federal Reserve policy, but had reason to expect a waiver, and, indeed, rising stock prices. Last October, he got the waiver from Timothy Geithner.
Indeed, with Geithner at the financial helm, the leaders of banking industry continue to rebuke responsibility for their reckless profligacy, and plan to continue their special brand of greed, using Congress and our money to lobby members of Congress.
We, in fact, see Obama in the White House, but the way our interests are dismissed by the plutocrats, and possibly by a pressured Congress, it feels like the Bush days.
Geithner’s guys are using our money to turn the tide against us.
We think our money is helping to preserve our economic way of life. Wall Street thinks it is entitled to our money due to esoteric vision and skills. They may even convince a compromised Congress that this is true.
A friendly Geithner gives Wall Street reason to believe they are invulnerable. Their actions afford proof.
From whence comes the continued arrogance of financial leaders, in the light of their utter failure? Why else do AIG executives take bonuses for failure? Why do Wall Street executives still receive obscene pay? Why do banks still spend our money to lobby us out of our own legislative interests?
I know, next to billions,
$22 million over the last six months is a grain of sand on a lush beach, but
the idea of bailing out rapacious bank executives and have them spend millions
to thwart consumer interests makes me want to do the Network movie yell, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it
anymore!”
The biggest spenders were
General Motors, the pitiable shell of the Goliath that my esteemed grandfather
held up as an icon. Over the last six months, General Motors spent nearly $1
million a month on lobbying. The pirates of Citigroup and J.P. Morgan Chase
together spend more than $2.5 million to sway lawmakers and Obama
administration officials in a wide range of financial issues.
Bank executives released
millions of our money to block executive pay limits and tougher financial regulations.
Even legislation to preclude companies using
handouts to lobby against us is being aggressively opposed through the use of
our own money.
More than a dozen
financial firms and carmakers that have received TARP assistance spent money on
lobbying during the first three months of this year. After Citigroup and J.P.
Morgan Chase, top lobbyists included American Express, Wells Fargo Bank,
Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.
According to the
Huffington Post, Citigroup was caught using some of its $50 billion in federal
bailout (TARP) money to help organize large corporations against the Employee
Free Choice Act – an important piece of legislation which would make it easier
for workers to unionize and demand better wages and benefits.
As Ronald Reagan, the
Great Communicator, used to say, “There you go again!” In reality, there they
go again. Each generation has seen greedy and connected interests cheat the
simple and the vulnerable out of billions of dollars again and again.
In Reagan’s time it
was the savings and loan associations whose fraud and greed cost American
taxpayers some $100 billion, covering losses of many well-connected bankers and
high-risk investors who happened to have the ear, and in some cases, were
related to powerful politicians.
Having learned little
from this period of deregulation and greed, politicians are now giving trillions
of dollars of taxpayer money to a financial monolith enabled over the last 3
decades by our leaders, Republican and Democrat.
My suspicion is that
nothing is going to stop this combination of the political influence of power
and the infectious force of greed.
Timothy Geithner is
the immediate political cog whose background and actions suggest that Wall
Street will have its way with Congress and will continue de-regulated and flush
with taxpayer money.
If we let it
continue, the rich will ravage the next generation, submerging the common folk in
an even greater flood of insolvency, but again leaving the rich and powerful
high and dry.
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