timothy geithner
GRITtv: Remaking the Economy or Geithner's Image?
A spate of profiles of Timothy Geithner hit the news recently, from Vogue to the Atlantic and several places in between. Most of them seem to sound an optimistic note on the Treasury Secretary and former chief of the New York Federal Reserve, but we ask a couple of experts what's really going on with the economy--and if Geithner deserves any of that praise.
Robert Johnson is the director of economic policy at the Roosevelt Institute and the former chief economist for the Senate Banking Committee. Les Leopold is the author of The Looting of America. They both have some words for the Democrats on what happens if don't wise up.
Email this pageDemocracy Now!: Friday, Dec. 4, 2009
In an extended interview, former New York governor Eliot Spitzer explains how Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner “actually built and participated in creating the structure that now has collapsed” and calls for their ouster. He also talks about the scandal that forced him to resign as governor. And on the 40th anniversary of the death of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, attorney Jeffrey Haas, author of "The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther," tells the story behind that controversial killing. "Democracy Now!" is a daily independent newshour.
GRITtv: Why the Banks are Winning: Nomi Prins, Dean Baker, and James Mumm
Earlier this month and one year after the financial collapse Barack Obama told a group of Wall Street executives that he would not allow them to return to an age of excessive risk and disregard for the consequences of financial speculation. If only those words were true. Laura Flanders talks with Nomi Prins, Dean Baker and James Mumm about why banks keep getting bigger.
GRITtv: The F Word: Treasury's Private Ocean
How many times have I said, "It's hard not to feel bilked?" Just a few months ago, the Treasury Department stress tested the banks. The result was a call for massive new capital infusion -- for them, from us. Even then, academic studies were clear that the very same banks were making more than a buck. TARP recipients JP Morgan and Wells Fargo cut dividends to investors only once, and, well we all know what was happening at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley -- they were actually on track -- boy, were they on track -- to super-profits. $3.44 billion in the second quarter for Goldman. Hank Paulson, a former Goldman CEO, who once owned $700 million worth of STOCK told us last fall that if we gave to the banks, they'd give back to us --in jobs, and loans, and new businesses on Main Street. So the public paid out. And we waited, and waited, while unemployment rose and wages sank. Come summer, bankrupt states across the country were shutting summer schools and parks. And still the public waited and wondered. What happened to those hundreds of billions we gave to the banks?
GRITtv: The F Word: Strangling the Vampire Squid
It is all going according to plan. Goldman Sachs is the first to achieve solid profits. On its heels, JP Morgan/Chase. And if the Summers/Geithner plan continues apace other banks will return to profitability as will other sectors of American business. We're told virtually every day that we Americans believe in Free Markets and we need, first and foremost, strong financial institutions. So bravo. We are on our way. The problem, as we have learned through Republican and Democratic administrations alike, is that in the new America one person's profit is another's demise. So, the making of those big bucks by Goldman, and others, is tied to some pretty dire and plain economic realities: No wage gains despite ongoing higher productivity; little if any mortgage help for those in need; 29% credit card interest for those most in debt; enormous, growing unemployment, especially for minorities and for young people; huge numbers of Americans, many working Americans, on food assistance. Strip it all away and there's very little of substance in the pipeline for vulnerable Americans. Look around, is there any meaningful plan in place to help a working family you know? Do people really believe that shoring up banks will improve their lives? Barack Obama is playing a treacherous game: what are all those political wizards in the West Wing thinking? That people will listen to pleas for patience, forever? The time to strangle what Matt Taibbi calls the Vampire Squid is now. Before it strangles all the life and breath out of us.
