Oh, this is good news: Bloomberg’s story this morning “Geithner Nomination Takes Top Fed Wall Street Liaison” makes it sound as if Tim Geithner is the only guy in the country who can save the country:
“The appointment of Timothy Geithner
as U.S. Treasury secretary would deprive Federal Reserve
Chairman Ben S. Bernanke of his top troubleshooter on Wall
Street, compelling the Fed chief to act fast to find a
replacement.
Geithner’s departure would mean the loss of the Fed
executive Bernanke has relied on most to keep the financial
system from collapsing in this year’s credit crisis.”
First of all, who says Bernanke has kept the financial system from collapsing? Secondly, it simply isn’t true that Geithner’s the only sharp knife in the drawer. As I re-iterated early this morning: What’s wrong with Sheila Bair?
She’s a Republican, thus fulfilling Obama’s quota. She’s smart, she’s already the FDIC chief so she’s experienced, and she has shown more compassion and common sense than has Paulson, with whom she has clashed.
How many times to I have to iterate what she said more than a month ago, back when Paulson and Congress were figuring how much of your money they were going to spend to bail out Wall Street? Here are, once again, her words:
“Why there’s been such a political focus on making sure we’re not
unduly helping borrowers but then we’re providing all this massive
assistance at the institutional level, I don’t understand it. It’s been
a frustration for me.”