Ratigan explains why Geithner needs to go

I was focused on the local election last week, but did notice a must-read article by Dylan Ratigan on HuffPo. The basic idea is that (drumroll please...) Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner needs to go! I strongly suggest reading the whole piece. He lists numerous offenses committed agains the American people, but here's one of the critical excerpts:

the smoking gun for Secretary Geithner comes from a recent Bloomberg FOIA disclosure regarding events from last November. It was then that New York Federal Reserve Governor Tim Geithner decided to deliver 100 cents on the dollar, in secret no less, to pay off the counter parties to the world's largest (and still un-investigated) insurance fraud -- AIG. This full payoff with taxpayer dollars was carried out by Geithner after AIG's bank customers, such as Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and Societe Generale, had already previously agreed to taking as little as 40 cents on the dollar. Even after the GM autoworkers, bondholders and vendors all received a government-enforced haircut on their contracts, he still had the audacity to claim the "sanctity of contracts" in the dealings with these companies like AIG.

None of us were in the rooms when these decisions were made, so I don't pretend to know if Mr. Geithner was the one lone, sane voice of reason fighting against mysterious forces or the primary proponent. However, I fail to see the reasoning for why we continue to rely on those who were in the room when these horrendous decisions took place to be the same people that we choose to deal with their aftermath. There are just certain situations that are not suited for continuity. The best analogy I can think of is that it would be like asking Al Cowlings to spearhead the Nicole Brown Simpson murder investigation under the premise that he knows the layout and the "players" best.

Obviously Mr. Ratigan doesn't live in Cheshire. If he did, then I'm sure he could think of an even better analogy in our Town Hall.

Tim White