Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Taxing Day For Geithner

Yeah, I went there. Seriously though, it was a tough day for the guy; he’s going to earn every cent of his civil service salary over the next few years. But the reason Wall Street tanked over 380 points today was not because he was necessarily the bearer of bad news, it was that he lacked any type of news altogether.

Geithner presented an overview of his financial rescue plan in a speech earlier this afternoon, which calls for infusing over $2 trillion into the financial system through a partnership of private and government funds to acquire and sell toxic assets. However, the devil is in the details as to how the Fed will value these toxic assets currently weighing down the balance sheets of many struggling financial institutions.

Secretary Geithner is in a tough spot, but it's not as though he didn't have time to prepare.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Geithner provided the same fuzzy, detail deficient plan that his boss presented to the American people during the last 2 years.

Looks like the markets are not as follish as the (54%? of) American people.

Mudge said...

I wonder if we would even have this problem if Geitner, Daschle and Rangel had paid their taxes. Surely it would have made a dent in covering the ~$800B, no?