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Obama, Geithner seek to quell fears about oil spike WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner sought to quell fears on Thursday that unrest in Libya would put oil prices on a long term upward trajectory. "We actually think that we'll be able to ride out the Libya situation and it will stabilize," Obama, referring to fuel prices, told a group of corporate chief executives. Geithner said the world had plenty of reserves that could be deployed in the event of a sustained disruption to supply. "We have substantial capacity across the major economies in the...

Iceland’s special prosecutor into the banking crisis has confirmed that raids have taken place today and that arrests have been made. The Central Bank of Iceland is among the institutions under investigation. Special Prosecutor, Olafur Thor Hauksson told Visir.is that house searches are taking place in at least three places today as part of investigations into the central bank, MP Bank and Straumur Bank......

Treasury's Geithner says China needs faster yuan rise 7:01am EST WASHINGTON | Wed Jan 12, 2011 8:56am EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - China's yuan currency remains "substantially undervalued" and it is in Beijing's own interest to let it appreciate more rapidly to ward off inflation risks, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Wednesday. In a speech ahead of Chinese president Hu Jintao's state visit to Washington next week, Geithner held out the prospect of more cooperation on China's bid for high-tech goods if Beijing was willing to let its currency rise in value more swiftly. "China still closely manages the...

In an outreach effort to Congress on Thursday, Secretary Geithner wrote a pleading letter to raise the debt ceiling. In recent years, raising the debt ceiling has been somewhat clockwork for lawmakers in Washington. However this time around, newly elected members of the 112th Congress may not see such a process as business as usual. ... Of course one stance that could be taken on the issue is to simply vote against raising the debt ceiling. Such a position ... would be "deeply irresponsible" according to Geithner and would result in major consequences

Tim Geithner has message for the 112th Congress: The sky really is falling. President Obama’s blunt Treasury secretary has dispatched a doomsday missive to congressional leaders, detailing the very bad things that will happen to the country – a default and global economic cataclysm – if the GOP fails to increase the debt limit to $14.29 trillion this spring. Geithner, responding to a request by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), outlined a handful of painful short-term stopgaps to increase the “headroom” needed to fund day-to-day operations and fulfill the country’s fiscal obligations

Geithner Urges Congress To Raise Debt Limit; Warns Of US Default By Meena Thiruvengadam and Jeffrey Sparshott Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--As the U.S. approaches its debt limit of nearly $14.3 trillion, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is pushing lawmakers to lift that ceiling for the sixth time in less than four years. Failure to raise the debt limit could "precipitate a default by the United States," Geithner said, in a letter to lawmakers Thursday. A U.S. default could have "catastrophic economic consequences that would last for decades," Geithner said, describing a default as a long-lasting tax on Americans...

Rep. Darrell Issa is aiming to launch investigations on everything from WikiLeaks to Fannie Mae to corruption in Afghanistan in the first few months of what promises to be a high profile chairmanship of the top oversight committee in Congress. According to an outline of the committee’s hearing topics obtained by POLITICO, the House Oversight and Government Reform is also planning to investigate how regulation impacts job creation, the role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the foreclosure crisis; recalls at the Food and Drug Administration and the failure of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission to agree on the...

The Wall Street Journal has an editorial inexplicably siding with Michelle Obama against Sarah Palin on the issue of Mrs. Obama's campaign against childhood obesity. The Journal: "Adults do have an obligation to teach children how to live, and that includes adults who are role models by dint of their national prominence. JFK asked kids to do chinups for the Presidential Fitness Award..." Bathing the President's Council on Physical Fitness retrospectively in the aura of JFK is nice, but the fact is that the program, according to its own history, began not under JFK, but rather, like so many other...

Link only - The Chicago Climate Club Gets Capped

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was hospitalized Friday for a kidney stone and will undergo what a spokesman called “a minor surgical procedure.” Geithner was admitted to George Washington University Hospital in Washington on Friday morning.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has been admitted to a hospital where he will undergo minor surgery to deal with a kidney stone. Treasury spokesman Steve Adamske said Geithner began experiencing severe pain from a kidney stone during the night and was admitted to George Washington University hospital Friday morning. Adamske said that Geithner will have what he called a "minor surgical procedure" performed Friday afternoon and expects to be back at work on Monday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Tuesday there was still disagreement with Republicans on whether to extend Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and that he asked two top advisers to help negotiate a deal. Obama said he appointed Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and budget director Jack Lew to work with congressional Republicans and Democrats to come up with a deal in the coming days to prevent broad tax increases from occurring next year. "We should work to make sure that taxes will not go up by thousands of dollars on hard-working middle-class Americans come January 1,...

Go read it.

(Reuters) - Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Friday warned Congress against politicizing the Federal Reserve and said the Obama administration would oppose any effort to strip the Fed's mandate to promote full employment. "It is very important to keep politics out of monetary policy, as Congress recognized when it established the Fed," Geithner said in an interview on Bloomberg Television's "Political Capital with Al Hunt" program. Two influential Republican lawmakers this week said the Fed should focus solely on inflation and ditch the full-employment half of its "dual mandate"

Dear FReepers, Here are the connections, the perps and their nefarious plan. It's time all red blooded American citizen screams 'bloody murder' the Barbarians are inside the gates folks. Spread the truth, speak out, write letters and post copies of this e-mail to everyone you know. Start looking for Soros, Obama, Frank, Geithner and Dodd. Do your duty FReepers, so help us God. God Bless You All, Mike Curtiss ( STanD ) CONNECTION BETWEEN TIMOTHY GEITHNER AND GEORGE SOROS* Source: Cliff Kincaid from Accuracy in Media The former President of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, the Chinese-speaking Tim Geithner...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Tuesday the administration remains opposed to a permanent extension of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, something strongly favored by Republicans. He said it is critical for Congress to resolve the issue before the end of the year. Geithner said that the administration wanted to see a permanent extension of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for families making less than $250,000 annually. He said a permanent extension of tax cuts for households making above that amount would be very expensive. But during an appearance at a forum for corporate executives, Geithner...

On the even of the G20 Summit, World Bank Chief Robert Zoellick has what will be a much-talked-about op-ed in the FT regarding the topic du jour: the currency war. In it he lays out multiple ideas including a specific plan for yuan appreciation, an end to unilateral currency interventions, a focus on growth via "supply-side-bottlenecks (i.e. structural adjustment), and perhaps most surprisingly: gold. He writes: The system should also consider employing gold as an international reference point of market expectations about inflation,

Round two of the economic crime of the century has begun. On January 12, Lawrence Summers, President Obama's designee to become director of his National Economic Council, sent a letter to congressional majority and minority leaders seeking the second half of the $750 billion approved by Congress last October.   Citing Obama's economic speech of January 8, Summers wrote: "As the President-elect recently stated, 'we start 2009 in the midst of a crisis unlike any other we have seen in our lifetime.'" As you no doubt recall, last September Congress, fearing the wrath of constituents, rejected a bailout scheme put together...

I’m not talking about an interview on “The Daily Show” here, a la The One’s eleventh-hour appearance before the election to push GOTV on young voters. I’m talking about a private meeting, on background, between the United States Treasury Secretary and a guy who once famously described his own show on Comedy Central as the one that follows puppets making crank phone calls. Can’t say it better than Michael Moynihan: “Will Hillary Clinton talk to Pat Cooper about Afghanistan?” In the midst of debates on financial regulation and China’s currency in April, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner sat down to...

(Reuters) - Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner vowed on Monday that the United States would not devalue the dollar for export advantage, saying no country could weaken its currency to gain economic health. "It is not going to happen in this country." Geithner told Silicon Valley business leaders of devaluing the dollar. Geithner broke his silence on the dollar's protracted slide ahead of this weekend's meeting of finance leaders from the Group of 20 wealthy and emerging nations in South Korea, where rising tensions over Chinese and U.S. currency valuations are expected to take center stage. "It is very important for...