A picture is worth a thousand bonars

[don]

You place your hands like so. Then begin applying steady pressure.
You'll see the face reddening. That's normal.
Increase pressure.
When the eyeballs pop out, you're home free, friend.
Mission Accomplished!
Your Pal, Larry

[GRG55]

NYT Article Critical of Geithner...

You place your hands like so. Then begin applying steady pressure.
You'll see the face reddening. That's normal.
Increase pressure.
When the eyeballs pop out, you're home free, friend.
Mission Accomplished!

The NY Times has an interesting [and lengthy] article today. Seems some in the usually-too-close-to-power MSM are starting to find some backbone. Finally. :eek:

Geithner, as Member and Overseer, Forged Ties to Finance Club
Published: April 26, 2009

Last June, with a financial hurricane gathering force, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. convened the nation’s economic stewards for a brainstorming session. What emergency powers might the government want at its disposal to confront the crisis? he asked.

Timothy F. Geithner, who as president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank oversaw many of the nation’s most powerful financial institutions, stunned the group with the audacity of his answer. He proposed asking Congress to give the president broad power to guarantee all the debt in the banking system, according to two participants, including Michele Davis, then an assistant Treasury secretary...

...But in the 10 months since then, the government has in many ways embraced his blue-sky prescription. Step by step, through an array of new programs, the Federal Reserve and Treasury have assumed an unprecedented role in the banking system, using unprecedented amounts of taxpayer money, to try to save the nation’s financiers from their own mistakes.

And more often than not, Mr. Geithner has been a leading architect of those bailouts, the activist at the head of the pack...

...An examination of Mr. Geithner’s five years as president of the New York Fed, an era of unbridled and ultimately disastrous risk-taking by the financial industry, shows that he forged unusually close relationships with executives of Wall Street’s giant financial institutions.

His actions, as a regulator and later a bailout king, often aligned with the industry’s interests and desires, according to interviews with financiers, regulators and analysts and a review of Federal Reserve records...

[marvenger]

Re: NYT Article Critical of Geithner...

Timmy bown nose Geithner not looking so innocent now. What does this mean though, do the media and government officials finally realise they are creating an oligarchy that is not even in their own interests, or is this just a bit of scapegoating of poor old Timmy.

[jtabeb]

Re: NYT Article Critical of Geithner...

Timmy bown nose Geithner not looking so innocent now. What does this mean though, do the media and government officials finally realise they are creating an oligarchy that is not even in their own interests, or is this just a bit of scapegoating of poor old Timmy.

I seriously think it is a push by the administration to try to gain some control over the oligarchy. Go Catch last' Friday's bill moyers journal. I think the Gov is powerless right now and is trying to push this to the public to build popular support for a more confrontational track with the financial oligarchy. I got the same opinion from my friend that is wired in to the DNC. The point is, there is not enough of a public awareness and backlash to do the type of necessary reforms that Stiglitz, Hudson, EJ, et-al have proposed. They are trying to build concensus to get some leverage, because right now they are insufficiently powerful to check the interests of the banks (Bank Blackmailers have the upper hand right now).

[Starving Steve]

Re: NYT Article Critical of Geithner...

The problem with the current administration is the people, the poor diagnosis of the economic downturn, the endless money supply growth, the silly idea that money need not generate interest, endless bail-outs, the lack of a coherent plan, everything. Add to this the bias of the current administration against nuclear power, the over-reliance on solar and wind solutions, the obvious need for more drilling, and you have a mess because nothing is being done.

Mediocre people with mediocre or politically-correct ideas is the hallmark of the Obama Administration, and nothing is being done to solve anything. So the nation drifts. Nothing gets done, but everything goes thru the motions of being politically-correct. Everything feels good and looks good; everything sounds good.

The future is obviously China and India and Putin's Russia, not America. A picture is worth a thousand bonars because the picture is one of the mediocre-Joes of the Obama Administration.

[audrey_girl]

Re: A picture is worth a thousand bonars

He who pays the fiddler calls the tune


- B. Franklin

With that in mind:

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/co...&cid=N00009638

[Thailandnotes]

Re: A picture is worth a thousand bonars

He who pays the fiddler calls the tune

Can you explain what tunes the University of California, Harvard, Columbia are calling.
Just curious.

[GRG55]

Re: A picture is worth a thousand bonars

You place your hands like so. Then begin applying steady pressure.
You'll see the face reddening. That's normal.
Increase pressure.
When the eyeballs pop out, you're home free, friend.
Mission Accomplished!

Here's another picture:



Looks like the "green shoots", "glimmers of hope", "slowing rate of descent", "2nd-half recovery", "November was the bottom" or whatever other similar prediction about the economy may have been just a wee bit too soon perhaps? :p

ATA Truck Tonnage Index Plunged 4.5 Percent in March

April 27, 2009 4:15 PM Arlington, Va.— The American Trucking Associations’ advanced seasonally adjusted (SA) For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index fell 4.5 percent in March, marking the first month-to-month decrease of 2009. The gains during the previous two months, which totaled 4.5 percent, were erased with March’s drop. (February’s increase was revised down to 1.5 percent.) In March, the SA tonnage index equaled just 101.4 (2000 = 100), which is its lowest level since March 2002.

[Starving Steve]

Re: A picture is worth a thousand bonars

I got a BA from UC in 1970. I always considered myself a social-democrat and a liberal; in Minnesota, Democratic Farmer-Labour, and in Saskatchewan and Manitoba a member of the NDP (New Democratic Party). So, how in the H. does Obama end-up anti-nuclear power with the endorsement of UC Berkeley?

Dr. Bill Watenburg from UC is pro-nuke. He is pro-energy and pro-science. Pro-rising standard of livings. Pro-mankind. Pro-industry. So how in the H. does Obama come out with the endorsement of UC and turn-out anti-nuclear at the same time? This doesn't add.

I want power plants. I want electricity. I want growth and prosperity. The cheapest power is nuclear, so that is what I am for.

I will not support so-called Democrats like Obama who do not support nuclear power. The standard-of-living is the central issue for the future.

Let the environmentalists make their own party, but they will not get my support in the next election. I want a better standard-of-living for everyone.

A picture is worth a thousand bonars, and the kind of Demos who have gotten in power of late under Obama are no Demos for me. Let them have their Bernanke and their Geithner, their banker oligarchy in Washington, their secret plans, and their environmental movement on the West Coast, but they will not get my vote ever again.

[marvenger]

Re: NYT Article Critical of Geithner...

they shouldn't have let themselves be bought in the first place, but at least hopefully its a sign people are finally waking up. Oligarchs better hope public sentiment doesn't start building along MAx Keiser's proposals for them.

[c1ue]

Re: A picture is worth a thousand bonars

I seriously think it is a push by the administration to try to gain some control over the oligarchy. Go Catch last' Friday's bill moyers journal.

Uh, perhaps, but I think more likely it is a case of Obama covering his rump should the bankster's plan not save the economy as touted.

As for Bill Moyers, you mean he of the Press Secretary under Lyndon Johnson fame?

Hardly an objective voice - much more of a mouthpiece for the Democratic party.

As for:

Can you explain what tunes the University of California, Harvard, Columbia are calling.

It would be more accurate to say: What tunes are the endowment funds of the UC, Harvard, and Columbia are calling. Because said endowment funds are very much FIRE economy pillars.