"What an insipid anticlimax! Rising to "a challenge more complex than our financial system has ever faced," Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner promised on Tuesday to give trillions more to the very folks who profited from that malignant complexity. For all the brave talk about transparency and accountability in the banking bailout, he gave the swindlers who got us into this mess yet another blank check to buy up the "toxic assets" they gleefully created.
Geithner was condescending, vague and infuriating as he lectured us on the troubled financial system. His performance feeds a popular suspicion that politicians are still working for the other side.
According to the Congressional Oversight Panel created by Congress to monitor the bailout, the Bush Treasury Department overpaid by $78 billion of our money in the first ten purchases of those assets. Yet Geithner tells us "Congress acted quickly and courageously" in throwing that money at Wall Street without requiring any accountability. At the same time, there is still no commitment to directly help what Geithner admits are the millions of homeowners already foreclosed out of their homes, with millions more to come. The leaks from Treasury promise that $50 billion will eventually be allocated directly to helping homeowners, which is a day late and a dollar short in chump change compared to the trillion dollars that Geithner on Tuesday committed to the purchase of more bad bank debt.
The Geithner speech betrayed the buildup to it offered by President Obama in his press conference the day before. I was such a sucker I found myself cheering at almost every line, agreeing that Republicans acted with total irresponsibility in opposing Obama's plan to stimulate an economy that was wrecked on their watch. But then came the hangover reality of Geithner's talk. Instead of the promised transparency we were treated to yet another "trust Big Brother" hustle.
How wonderful that Geithner, who as head of the New York Federal Reserve was in on the first wasted $350 billion, now promises a brand new website to help us taxpayers follow the action. It means nothing, given that he specifically ruled out any of the serious means of holding Wall Street accountable.
The word "dole" is usually applied heartlessly to welfare mothers sustained in their dire poverty by meager government handouts, not to the top bankers now ripping off the taxpayers. But as opposed to welfare mothers, who must survive stringent monitoring, the bankers will be largely self-monitoring. No wonder that welfare rolls, because of onerous eligibility rules, are not rising commensurate to the degree of misery out there. There is no such tough love for bankers. ..."
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