Paulson to Geitner: Dumb and Dumber
When the Obama term began I remained anxious about many areas of his philosophy but one thing I was happy about was to see the last of Henry Paulson. I was afraid that each time he spoke that the stock market might just move to zero and close. I had never witnessed a political appointee move so quickly to a position of such power as Paulson had done. He carried his rise with a total lack of humility, humanity and with no apparent care for the effect of his decisions on the general population. His every public appearance produced another new low in the market and the confidence of the nation as to whether we had people in charge who knew what they were doing. Those of us with simple financial knowledge understood that a Treasury policy that handed out billions of dollars of our money without a clear understanding how the money was to be used, was at least a bit nutty. The later revelation that there was no clear record as to who got what, left many of us simple souls convinced that it ws more than just a bit nutty.
I knew I wouldn’t miss Paulson.
I still don’t miss him but after hearing his successor as Secretary of The Treasury, Tim Geitner, speak today I have to wonder where do these guys come from. It must be a different planet. The financial world and interested by-standers like me anxiously awaited to hear the outline of the plan that was to lead us back to a stable economy.
The President in his press conference last night remarked that he didn’t want to step on Geitner’s toes since the Secretary was going to speak on the plan today. I got a bit pumped up hoping that someone who knew what they were doing would assure me that Nancy Pilosi was not going to be the only one working on the problem.
I waited with the hope that the brilliance of Geitner would demonstrate why we needed to overlook the appointment of him as a Treasury Secretary that didn’t pay his taxes in a timely manner and took his son’s summer camp costs as a business expense.
I’m sorry to say I’m still wondering after his sorry performance today. There was no plan and really no confidence building presentation indicting that he really has a clue or concern about the fears of the nation. Look at the sell off in the stock markets that started immediately after his presentation. I’m only part of a crowd that is wondering.
We really have to find a few smarter people to get involved in political office. The President shouldn’t worry about stepping on his appointees toes. He needs to kick some butt.
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Comments
Chris has a real suggestion for helping balance sheets which has been echoed by many real estate experts and banks that finance real estate. I’ve never understood using a mark to market system with real estate. A house might have value for 200 years. It seems to me that mark to market is not applicable to housing and removing it would thaw the credit situation as Chris has suggested. Buck
With regard to specifics, I would like to see the Treasury (or somebody in charge) suspend the mark-to-market rule for twenty-four months with the provisio that it will be reviewed for re-instaement after that time. Many in-the- know economists have voiced this same desire and have said that a lot of bank balance sheets could be greatly improved by this move…thus leading to an appreciable thaw in credit.