People calling for Geithner's head are now completely missing the mark.

[ProSense]

Geithner was confirmed January 26. People have been making noise for weeks. Obama stood by him this week.

Make Geithner and Bernanke Say "Housing Bubble"

By Dean Baker - March 20, 2009, 11:04PM

Timothy Geithner and Ben Bernanke could not see an $8 trillion housing bubble as it was growing to ever more dangerous levels. Remarkably, it seems like they still cannot see the housing bubble even as its collapse is leading to the most severe downturn since the Great Depression.

At least that is what the NYT is telling readers. According to the NYT, the new bank rescue plan works on the assumption that: "because the government can hold those mortgages as long as it wants, officials are betting the government will be repaid and that taxpayers may even earn a profit if the market value of the loans climbs in the years to come."

House prices have another 20 percent to fall to correct back to trend levels. Unless someone is smoking something illegal, they have zero reason to believe they will rise again.

This is painful.

Everyone has an opinion, but the U.S. has only one President. The plan will be unveiled next week.

It should be clear by now that Geithner is not the President, and unless or until Obama says otherwise, Geithner isn't going anywhere.

It'll be interesting if the Obama administration's plan actually works, and I doubt Obama is setting himself up for failure, despite the naysayers.

We'll see.







Edited to add link and typo.

[Occam Bandage]

1. You assume they're aiming at a certain mark. nt

[Thrill]

2. Look the plan will either make or break Geithner. I hope it works

.

[firedupdem]

3. He's not going anywhere. The President made that clear again

last night. There is no easy fix for these banking issues. Anybody can sit back and write their opinion piece blasting the administration. That's real easy.

[chascarrillo]

13. Well, then, we are fucked.

[w4rma]

4. Geithner's plan to bailout financial industry shareholders and bondholders *will* fail. It misses

the entire point of fixing the economy and rewards and promotes failure. FIRE HIM, NOW. Before he enacts this BS.

[ProSense]

5. Obama isn't going to fire him. Obama approves the plan.

What now?

[w4rma]

8. What now? It won't work. Obama cannot bailout stockholders and bondholders and expect the nation to

rebound. Obama needs to bailout MAIN STREET. Forget about bailing out stockholders and bondholders. Stocks and bonds are inherently risks.

[cooolandrew]

6. Yeah it's probably too early to call resignation when many a Republican should of vacted years >

before now with a long list of crimes to their name. Not that any real crimes were committed here anyway.

[Jennicut]

7. And who exactly will run Treasury after Tim G. gets canned? There is no one there right now other

then Geithner. A terrible time to fire the treasury sec would be right now with no staff in place. There would be zero confidence then instead of just a little. I would give him a year.

[w4rma]

9. We have months. We don't have a year. (nt)

[burythehatchet]

10. Paulson could come back, or Robert Rubin. Maybe Phil Gramm. LOTS of available talent.

Maybe someone from Goldman Sachs. There are a lot of ex-Merrill people who would do a fine job.

[Political Heretic]

11. I don't agree with the calls for resignation over bonuses.

But I do believe that Tim G. and the administration mishandled a great many thing when it comes to wall street firms and bailout money and conditions on that money. The dropped the ball. They must pick it up again.

Having said that, I grow sicker and sicker over what I feel was a very poor choice of an economic team. But I don't believe that somehow canning them all now would do anything but send our economy into an even greater tailspin. What we need is to continue to apply counter pressure to our President to match the voices of the corporatist that surround him.

[donheld]

12. If Geithner quits or is fired won't that mean NOBODY works in Treasury

As I understand it he has no one as yet hired as assistants or deputies.