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Little Timmy Bonaparte testified today before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and it looked as if he was going to explode on national television. I must say I am surprised that he decided to come out so aggressively. I was waiting for someone on the panel to ask him if he “ordered the code red”? (If you don’t know what I mean, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hopNAI8Pefg I must admit I was amused. Bonaparte scored one on the congressional panelist who told him to speak into the microphone (a standard intimidation tactic) to which he caustically replied “I’m almost eating it”....

These hearings are simply amazing. First, Tim Geithner. Timmy made a lot of noise about "total meltdown" risk (and indeed even referenced the possible loss of civil order!) but the question that was not asked is this: Who stoked that fear in Congress? That would be Bernanke and Paulson, right? They in fact told Congress "either hand over $700 billion for buying troubled assets or tanks will be in the streets." But then - on top of that - they didn't do what they said they needed the money for and there were no tanks! So we're stuck with a...

What Does Senator Bunning Know, And, More Relevantly, What Does The Just Disclosed Fed Whistleblower Know? Tyler Durden on 01/26/2010 19:59 -0500 First, watch the below video. Note Senator Bunning's agreement with Zero Hedge on who the proposed head of the Fed should be (i.e., John Taylor). But that's irrelevant. What is - at 5:40 Bunning says that "Geithner will be fired by the President for his inability to handle his job as Secretary of the Treasury." True. What is even more relevant, and hints at a potential smoking gun, begins at 8:00 "[Bernanke's] staff did not agree with him...

Geitner is getting badly bloodied and gutted in today's congressional hearing -- by members of both parties. Never seen anything like it. Several congressmen has gone as far to demand his resignation, during questioning. Others have shouted him down, going far outside their time limit. He has been absolutely berated left and right. Almost feel sorry for the guy. He's become the poster child for a crisis a lot of people had a hand in, including the American electorate itself. http://cspan.org/Watch/C-SPAN3.aspx

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, right, speaks with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's ranking Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2010, prior to testifying before the committee's hearing on AIG. U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner testifies before the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on "Factors Affecting Efforts to Limit Payments to AIG Counterparties" on Capitol Hill in Washington, January 27, 2010.

Mica and Lynch Particularly Vociferous By Michael P. Tremoglie Tremoglie's Tea Time Blog Rep. John Mica (R.- Fla) and Rep. Steven Lynch (D.-Mass.) berated Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner during his testimony this morning before the House Oversight Committee. Geithner is being questioned ...

LiveStream - Hearing of Tim Geithner and the handling of AIG bailout. Goldman Sachs stock is down 150. Geithner is in hot water.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner held out hope to Congress that a hefty investment to bail out insurer AIG (AIG.N) and avert its catastrophic failure will gain value as the economy improves. In prepared remarks for delivery on Wednesday to the U.S. House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Geithner defended the controversial 2008 rescue and said it was done solely to protect U.S. taxpayers' interests. ... The committee will question both Geithner and his predecessor as Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, about the AIG bailout that has stirred widespread anger and raised questions about Geithner's role in...

Reuters notes: U.S. securities regulators originally treated the New York Federal Reserve's bid to keep secret many of the details of the American International Group bailout like a request to protect matters of national security, according to emails obtained by Reuters. The national security claim may seem outlandish, but it is nothing new. As Business Week wrote on May 23, 2006: President George W. Bush has bestowed on his intelligence czar, John Negroponte, broad authority, in the name of national security, to excuse publicly traded companies from their usual accounting and securities-disclosure obligations. In other words, national security has been...

From the wire: WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- The special inspector general for the government's $ 700 billion Wall Street rescue plan is opening a pair of probes into the government's rescue of American International Group Inc. (AIG), including efforts to slow public disclosure of all of the terms of the deal. .... Additionally, Barofsky said he is reviewing the cooperation of the Federal Reserve with his staff's attempt to conduct an audit of the AIG transactions. Some of the documents recently turned over to the Oversight panel "were not provided to the SIGTARP audit team during the course of the audit."...

Did Geithner lie? this needs to be investigated. The MSM is not covering this. I am asking all freepers to call talk radio and promote this story as it is very serious. Getihner testifies to congress this week! - In the newest development of the investigation into the New York Fed’s involvement in the AIG bailout of last year, emails passed between NY Fed officials have been revealed to state that the AIG bailout was better for banks “from a financial-stability perspective.” The email, sent back in October of 20008 from then-vice president Margaret McConnell to Geithner, could contradict Geithner’s...

“INSIDE OBAMA’S WASHINGTON” A POLITICO Video Series January 25, 2010 (Recorded January 22, 2010) INTERVIEWER: MIKE ALLEN, Chief White House Correspondent GUEST: TIMOTHY GEITHNER, Treasury Secretary CHAPTER 1 MR. ALLEN: Hello. I'm Mike Allen, White House correspondent of POLITICO. Welcome to POLITICO’s video series, "Inside Obama's Washington." We're here at the Treasury Department with Secretary Tim Geithner. Welcome, Mr. Secretary. SECRETARY GEITHNER: Nice to see you, Mike. MR. ALLEN: How confident are you that a clear recovery will be underway by this spring? SECRETARY GEITHNER: Very confident. The economy is healing. It's growing. It's more broad based. You see the...

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner warned that the financial markets would view a Senate rejection of Ben Bernanke's renomination as "very troubling" but said he's sure the embattled Federal Reserve chairman will prevail. "We're very confident that the chairman will be reconfirmed by the Senate, and we think it's very important he be reconfirmed by the Senate," Geithner said Friday in an interview at the Treasury for POLITICO's new video series, "Inside Obama's Washington," debuting Monday. "He's done a remarkable job of helping steer this economy out of the great recession. And I think he'll play a very important role in...

The first casualty of the president's political debacle will likely be Timothy Geithner, the severely over-confident treasury secretary well known as a lapdog of Wall Street. Geithner was effectively repudiated by the president last week when Barack Obama abruptly announced a new, more aggressive approach to financial reform. But the immediate threat to Geithner is the scandal of collusion and possibly illegal behavior gathering around the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for its megabillion-dollar takeover of insurance giant AIG.

The House Oversight and Government Reform committee this week received a list that will capture eyes from Wall Street to Washington. Timothy Geithner’s call log during the tightest grips of the financial crisis show the then-New York Federal Reserve Board chairman made calls calls to U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Obama transition adviser Lee Sachs and Warren Buffet. Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and former Lehman Bros. CEO Dick Fuld also spoke with Geithner. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke got calls, as...

Call him "Tiny" Tim. As President Obama turns up the heat on Wall Street, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner appears to have a diminished role in shaping policies pertaining to the financial sector amid talk that he has reservations about the tack that the White House is taking to try to rein in firms. Signs that Geithner might be on the outside looking in were visible Thursday, as the Treasury secretary stood two people away from Obama while the president outlined the broad strokes of a plan that could effectively separate commercial banking from investment banking and curb consolidation in the...

After the stinging blow to healthcare this week, Barack Obama has shifted his focus to “Big Banking”. (Whenever they add the word “BIG” it makes it much more diabolical - akin to “Big Tobacco”.) He has proposed that strict limits be imposed on the size and trading activities of the nation's biggest banks. The most offensive part: Barney Frank and Chris Dodd of all people have the temerity to...

A Treasury spokesman tells POLITICO’s Eamon Javers that Wednesday night, "Treasury Secretary Geithner hosted a number of bankers as part of Treasury’s ongoing discussions with the financial sector. The group discussed financial reform and the proposed fee on large, highly-leveraged financial institutions."

President Barack Obama on Wednesday signed an executive order directing the Office of Management and Budget and other federal agencies to keep contractors who are delinquent on their taxes from getting new contracts with the government. He also directed the IRS to review contractor filings to ensure the companies are not lying about the taxes they've paid. "By issuing this directive, all of us in Washington will be required to be more responsible stewards of your tax dollars. All across this country, there are people who meet their obligations each and every day. You do your jobs. You support your...

President Barack Obama has proposed a new tax on large financial institutions as a method to fully recover all of the TARP funds which the federal government has doled out since late 2008. In announcing this proposed tax, Obama made the emphatic statement, “We want our money back and we’re going to get it.” The obvious absurdity, if not hypocrisy, of Obama’s statement and this new tax proposal is that most of the very companies targeted by the tax have already repaid all of their TARP funds. One big exception to that rule is AIG, which essentially has no chance...