I never said Geithner was Sec Tres. He was head of the NY Fed and was instrumental in arranging the "marriages" of many of the banks. He worked extremely closely with Paulson and was part of the team to come up with TARP.
So was the auto bailout.
Never said I agreed with the auto bailout...
It is just more kicking the can down the road and bailing out the big banks and insurance companies. Instead of being held accountable, the taxpayer picked up the tab.
you do realize that if the government had let all the banks and insurance companies go the "Great Recession" would have been thousands of times worse right? The impact of the huge amount of derivatives would have wiped out many trillions more of wealth (of you and me not just banks) and the global economy would have completely collapsed. Credit markets would have frozen for years. It would have made the Great Depression look like a mild dip. Oh and the vast majority of TARP finds have been repaid.
The huge Porkulus bill and increased spending has led to an additional $6 trillion being added to the national debt in four years. We will pay a fearful price for this "masterful handling" of the fiscal crisis.
Again this was Obama and Congress not Bernanke and Geithner and I agree that the Porkulus bill was a disaster.
Holding interest rates artificially low is helping to debase our currency and will eventually lead to the rest of world going to a different reserve currency.
We are still in a very slow recovery so low rates is the proper mechanism. Raising rates now would choke off what little growth their is and make the fiscal situation worse. It is interesting that despite the "massive debt problem" that the "flight to safety" remains UST's...
So TARP was a good idea?
you do realize that if the government had let all the banks and insurance companies go the "Great Recession" would have been thousands of times worse right? The impact of the huge amount of derivatives would have wiped out many trillions more of wealth (of you and me not just banks) and the global economy would have completely collapsed. Credit markets would have frozen for years. It would have made the Great Depression look like a mild dip. Oh and the vast majority of TARP finds have been repaid.
Those were the fear tactics used to bail out those too big to fail. It helped stampede Congress into signing on to it. It is so easy to make those statements just like stomping my foot in my living room in VA keeps the elephants away. TARP After Three Years: It Made Things Worse, Not Better
TARP Inspector General: TARP was a Failure
Again this was Obama and Congress not Bernanke and Geithner and I agree that the Porkulus bill was a disaster.
Geithner supported the Porkulus bill and wanted to make it even bigger. The idea that you can separate Obama and Geithner in terms of policy is nonsense. And it was passed by a Dem-controlled Congress with almost no Rep votes. It was rammed down our throats just like Obamacare. Both Obama and Geithner claimed that Porkulus saved millions of jobs and was key to getting us out of the fiscal crisis.
We are still in a very slow recovery so low rates is the proper mechanism. Raising rates now would choke off what little growth their is and make the fiscal situation worse. It is interesting that despite the "massive debt problem" that the "flight to safety" remains UST's...
The interest rates are being held artificially low. With our huge and growing federal debt, when interest rates return to their historical norm of 4% to %5, our debt servicing costs will increase exponentially overnight.
The artificially low rates are not helping growth and they mask our serious debt problem. They are also causing the devaluation of the dollar and undermining the dollar as the world's reserve currency.
It is interesting that despite the "massive debt problem" that the "flight to safety" remains UST's...
Right now the Fed is buying 70% of our T-bills. China has decreased its holdings. The SSTF holds the greatest amount of T-bills--around $2.7 trillion. The Fed holds about $2.1 trillion. $11.4 trillion is held publicly with the foreign owned portion being around $5.4 trillion. China has actually decreased its holdings of T-bills.
You can take solace that investments in T-bills is the best options compared to all the other options, but the reality is that none of these options are good and the whole global economy will collapse like a house of cards once the dollar does its inevitable swan dive. We are headed the way of Greece.