Thursday, January 07, 2010

Obama to create a new failed economic team?

We all know that Chris Dodd decided to begin Tea Partying and agreed to dump himself. But for me, the pressing issue here is not that Dick Blumenthal will almost certainly be our next Senator. Nope.

The big issue is with no looming reelection battle, how does Dodd treat financial regulatory reform? Will he continue his corporatist, Wall Street Wins Ways? Or will he do what so many Dems thought he would do... pull a Palin, go rogue and allow populist ideals and Main Street to Makeout for once?

Recognizing that the Senator has a young family... and the revolving door to K Street is extremely lucrative... I suspect he'll take the former, not the latter.

But maybe I'll be proven wrong?

In a perfect world, Chris Dodd would not simply cash in and sell out. Instead he'd do the right thing. For instance, he'd fire The Fed's Bailout Ben. And Senator Dodd certainly has the ability to do that. That would be fantastic. But Bernanke is only half of Obama's failed economic team.

Has the other half - Geithner - made any major gaffes recently?

Well... breaking news today from those fantastic financial reporters at Bloomberg:

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, then led by Timothy Geithner, told American International Group Inc. to withhold details from the public about the bailed-out insurer’s payments to banks during the depths of the financial crisis, e-mails between the company and its regulator show. (by Hugh Son)

I strongly encourage you to read the entire story - it's damning. But also keep in mind that the single biggest beneficiary of the AIG bailout was Goldman Sachs. So to me it's obvious that Geithner needs to be fired - immediately. And that could lead to Obama being required to create a new economic team. Any chance it'd be a failure just as big as his first?

But also keep in mind that Obama was already President-elect when this happened. So even more important to me:

What did Obama know? And when did he know it?

People almost certainly belong in jail for this. Unfortunately, this goes all the way to the top. So I doubt anyone will ever be held to account.

I thank Congressman Darrell Issa for pursuing this.

Tim White

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think one has to look at the edge of the abyss that this country was placed in and where we are today. A tremendous amount of progress has been mad and if the minority party had only tried to help in resolving the problems they created, we would be in much better shape.

I think the minority party will stay a minority party, until they start to work for the American people and stop their devisiveness that they hope will help them to regain power.

tim white said...

"minority party" ??

When it comes to banking & monetary policy, who is the minority? The two parties are in cahoots.

Ron Paul (R) and Bernie Sanders (D) are two of the best elected representatives in America. Yet it's the Bush / Obama team that chose to destroy America's middle class to benefit their own cronies.

This isn't a R/D issue in any way whatsoever IMO. I'd vote for Bernie Sanders, if I lived in VT. But I live in CT and I would have worked against Dodd this fall.