Geithern's Reverse Course

[mystieus]

Run time: 09:57 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjfsUjk2Q-g   Posted on YouTube: February 17, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: February 18, 2009 By DU Member: mystieus Views on DU: 734

 
A.B. Stoddard answers viewer questions about Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithners plan for the Bank Bailout as well as the future of bipartisanship under the Obama Administration.

[trthnd4jstc]

1. I am in love with her.

[JDPriestly]

3. I can't stand her Republican bias

She excuses the Republicans' negativity and balking on on the ground that they have such strong ideological commitments. But she doesn't show the same respect for the Democratic ideals that inform Obama's proposals. She ignores the fact that, as long as Obama is president and the Democrats along with a couple of middle-of-the road less ideological Republicans control Congress, the Republicans are going to have to compromise their ideological fixations. Republicans either have to compromise or stay on the fringe of the decision-making.

Then, in criticizing Geithner, she seems to forget that he was present when Paulson was doing the Republican bail-out. Geithner no doubt learned from Paulson's embarrassment that resulted when Paulson sold Congress on a plan that was at least more detailed than Geithner's proposal, but that had to be completely changed even reversed -- after it was passed by Congress.

This woman is, in my opinion, a rapid Republican, and rather stupid. She has bought into the cynicism that makes the right-wing MSM so boring that I rarely watch it. The Republican news announcers seem to think they are impressing everyone by taking that perennial cynical, "Got ya" game. In fact, their cynicism just makes them seem arrogant and full of themselves. They seem to be thinking: "Oh, look how smart I am. I see through it all, and am so proud to be able to show all you stupid folks out there just how smart I am to be able to see through the politicians." Frankly, I'm smarter than this woman is, and I don't like being talked down by her.

I much prefer the sincere approaches of Maddow, Olbermann and the humorous approach of John Stewart and Colbert. Why? Because Maddow and Olbermann, Stewart and Colbert show respect for the viewer. They seem to assume that their listeners are just as smart as they are and are just as aware as they are of the ironies of the political reality. The newscasters I like don't talk down to me, and they don't need to.

[slipslidingaway]

2. Thought the name might have been spelled wrong...

here is the article she mentions. This is what many people said at the time, there is no concrete plan.

:(


Late Change in Course Hobbled Rollout of Geithner's Bank Plan
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/16/AR2009021601180.html


"...According to several sources involved in the deliberations, Geithner had come to the conclusion that the strategies he and his team had spent weeks working on were too expensive, too complex and too risky for taxpayers.

They needed an alternative and found it in a previously considered initiative to pair private investments and public loans to try to buy the risky assets and take them off the books of banks. There was one problem: They didn't have enough time to work out many details or consult with others before the plan was supposed to be unveiled.

The sharp course change was one of the key reasons why Geithner's plan -- his first major policy initiative as Treasury secretary -- landed with such a thud last Tuesday. Lawmakers, investors and analysts expressed dismay over the lack of specifics. Markets tanked, and fresh doubts arose about the hand now steering the country's financial policy...


...Though Geithner had been in his job for only two weeks, he had been thinking about the problem of troubled assets since the credit crisis erupted 19 months earlier, first as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and then, since November, as Barack Obama's pick to head the Treasury...


...By Wednesday, Feb. 4, Geithner was leaning toward a different approach that his former colleagues at the Federal Reserve had developed months earlier, the source said. This involved a joint public-private fund to buy up the assets. Private investors, likely hedge funds and private-equity funds, would put up capital, and the government would loan money to the fund. If the private investors made wise decisions about which assets they bought, they would be able to pay back the government and make money for themselves..."