Charlie Rose Interviews Timothy Geithner

Timothy Geithner was on Charlie Rose on May 6, 2009.

Here are some comments he made:

TIM GEITHNER: A financial crisis reflects an unwillingness by the private sector to
take risks because of uncertainty and things they just can’t do. And
that’s why governments have to step in, in financial crisis and take risks
the market would otherwise not be prepared to make.

Duh! If the private sector won't "lend" or "take risks" that means it is likely a *bad idea* because it is a poor investment with a poor return on investment!
Since when do people believe the gov't can do a better job of predicting future value? (If you are unsure, see: Social Security; Medicare/Medicaid...)


CHARLIE ROSE: By definition some banks that hold these toxic assets
will say, “Thank you very much, Mr. Geithner. We choose to keep them and
not sell them.”

TIM GEITHNER: Right. And some will want to do that, but we’re going
to try to make it compelling to them to clean up their balance sheets and
put themselves in a position where it’s going to be easier in the future to
raise private capital.

Whenever you heard the word "compelling" from a Statist like Geithner, just break it down to its root: compel.
So he is saying if they don't want to sell, they will be "compelled" to sell. With what force Mr. Geithner? With threats like you leveled against GM and Chrysler? Like you leveled against BofA?


CHARLIE ROSE: Are you saying to the American taxpayers for all of
this money we’re pouring into these banks, the likelihood is that they will
get on their feet and be able to pay back all of the money that this
government has given them?

TIM GEITHNER: Well, what we’re going to do is to make sure, and this
is our obligation. My obligation is to protect the financial security of
the American people, and to ensure that this financial system does what it
needs to do to help get recovery back on track.
And everything we do is guided by that basic purpose. So where we put
assistance in it’s because that we think that is necessary and essential to
try to make sure there’s more lending capacity so that recovery can get --
can get traction quickly. That’s what’s going to guide our approach going
forward.

Note he did *not* answer the question. When asked very bluntly: Can the American Taxpayers expect to be paid back? He hedged. That is because their real goal is *not* payback; it is control.


CHARLIE ROSE: OK. But are these banks, 20 banks too big to fail?

TIM GEITHNER: Charlie, these banks account for the vast bulk of
lending in the United States. And we have a rich diverse financial system,
9,000 banks.

CHARLIE ROSE: But these 20...

TIM GEITHNER: These, they control between two-thirds and three
quarters of the banking as a whole now.


And if you check, you will also find that these banks (and organizations they support, such as PACs, Associations, Lobbying Orgs, etc) provided 70+% of *all* the contributions to the House & Senate re-election campaigns...so, we are bailing out the same organizations that gave us the wonderful 19% approval rating Congress that created the policies that allowed them to get us in this mess in the first place (and that is on *both* sides if the "aisle", an "aisle" that is appearing smaller and smaller as the days unfold). (For more detail on this, watch the videos here: http://www.ourcaucus.org)

But here is where the conversations starts to get just a bit *CREEPY*

TIM GEITHNER: Absolutely, 100 percent. And the president believes
strongly in this. And you saw him in the campaign lay out a set of very
ambitious proposals for reform.
...
But at the same time we have this great obligation to lay out for the
American people and the world a commitment to the kind of comprehensive
reforms so that a crisis like this never happens again. And we’re going to
move as quickly as we can on both those fronts.

CHARLIE ROSE: Can you give me some idea of what it will include?

TIM GEITHNER: Absolutely. You have to start by bringing a much
stronger set of oversight over all institutions that propose risk of damage
to the system.

What!? "by bringing a much stronger set of oversight over all institutions that propose risk of damage to the system."
Okay, I don't like the way that sounds...but maybe I misheard...

CHARLIE ROSE: Gordon Brown was in to see the president last week, and
he suggested that what is needed is global enforcement. Because this was a
crisis which started here and spread around the world, hardly any country
has not been affected.

TIM GEITHNER: Exactly.

WHAT!? "Global Enforcement"???!!! So what I am hearing is not only do we get "stronger oversight" but now I'm to understand the "oversight" is going to be "Global"? (Can anyone say: "trans-nationalism"?)

Okay, maybe the "global" is just our "friends"...so maybe it won't be so bad...but then they continue...

CHARLIE ROSE: We have gone from G-7 to the G-20, which means that
Brazil and Russia and India and China are now included.

TIM GEITHNER: Right.

HUH!? The "Global Enforcement" is to include: "Brazil and Russia and India and China"...oh, they're all our friends...does this sound like the screeching wheels of a train on a track about to crash to anyone else but me?

And then there is this little tidbit:

CHARLIE ROSE: The Chinese now hold more American debt than any other
country on the face of the earth. Are they still at this time, aggressive
about taking -- about American debt?

Yes, we are now beholden to China...outstanding!

Then Charlie helps him out with one of the biggest criticsms facing the administration today:

CHARLIE ROSE: On the other hand you get arguments that go like this,
this economic crisis is so huge and so threatening that the focus just
ought to be on the short-term. It ought to be getting credit flowing,
getting people back to work. And we can worry about long-term issues of
education, healthcare, and the environment at a later time.

TIM GEITHNER: As you know, the president doesn’t share that view, and
I think he’s right.
...
It is fiscally responsible, because we have a better capacity to live
within our means in the future and finance -- to make sure that we are
improving our capacity to grow in the future, and there is a basic moral
obligation in many of these areas again to provide better education
opportunities and out comes to all Americans so they can participate in
this economy fully, and to make our healthcare system deliver better
results and lower costs to businesses that Americans are suffering from the
burden of this healthcare system.


I cannot believe he used the word "basic moral obligation" as if these people even know what "morals" are anymore!
But he slipped up when he said: "because we have a better capacity to live within our means in the future and finance..."
Last time I checked, the *definition* of "living within your means" was contraring to "financing" anything.
Do people who "live without their means"
have to "finance" things? Can't they just pay cash?

If you have stuck with this so far...the Statism continues...

CHARLIE ROSE: I have read where you said that, we need to get back to
an economy in which people live within their means. Tell me what you mean
by that.

TIM GEITHNER: Well, you know, this crisis is caused by lots of
things. It’s caused by a bunch of very irresponsible judgments by the
financial system. But it’s also...

CHARLIE ROSE: By individuals.
TIM GEITHNER: Individuals, too.
CHARLIE ROSE: Not a system be but an individual.
TIM GEITHNER: By individuals running these institutions.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.

TIM GEITHNER: But if you look at the amount the American people were
borrowing relative to income, you just had a huge unsustainable rise in the
basic debt obligations to the American people.

CHARLIE ROSE: That’s what the president said, in fact, I think, at
the normal (ph), that we all, the whole range of people, bear
responsibility for this.

TIM GEITHNER: Right.

CHARLIE ROSE: Most of all the people in the financial sector, but
others somehow had a contributing effect.

TIM GEITHNER: Right. You know, people borrowed and spent beyond
their means. Governments borrowed and spent beyond their means. And, you
know, we’re now dealing with the consequences of that.

So, let me get this straight, the "crisis" was caused by "overspending" and "not living with your means" and
the solution is a *massive* spending package...got it...DO I HAVE THE WORD 'IDIOT' WRITTEN ON MY FOREHEAD!
What kind of moron thinks you can solve this problem with MORE OF THE SAME?!


CHARLIE ROSE: All right. There is also this. People look at the
budget that has been proposed. And they say, “This is a giant
redistribution, a redistributionist budget.”
They look at the fact that -- and especially some conservatives, who
are non-Keynsian (ph), look at this and say, you know, this is the
direction this country has never gone in. What do you say to those people
who are critical of the budget, because of the taxing policies that are
built into it?

TIM GEITHNER: Well, let’s look at the concrete facts in the budget.
What the budget does is propose -- again, once recovery is
established, to restore the tax rates on the most affluent Americans to the
level that was prevailing in 2001.
Now, most Americans will see a significant -- will see no rise in
their taxes, and many Americans in working marriages will see a significant
reduction in their tax burdens. That moves us to a fairer, more balanced
system. But it’s a modest change, completely consistent with having an
economy that’s going to grow in the future with the gains more broadly
shared.
Again we’re talking about restoring the tax rates on the most affluent
Americans, to a level that prevailed in 2001. And if you look at the
decade of economic reforms in the United States, in the decade before then,
you saw a period where private investment was growing very rapidly,
productivity gains were out-stripping what you saw in any other country
around the world. And again you saw broad-based, much more broad-based
sharing of those gains across the economy as a whole.
So this is a -- not just a fiscally-responsible package, but it
presides -- provides more fairness and balance to our taxpayers in a way
that I think is in the interests, long-term interests of the American
people.


Don't miss the following lines above:
"moves us to a fairer, more balanced system."
"with the gains more broadly shared."
"And again you saw broad-based, much more broad-based
sharing of those gains across the economy as a whole."
"[it]...provides more fairness and balance to our taxpayers"

And *who* is going to be in charge of this forced "fairness"?
I think we all know the answer: the State.

But you had to watch almost the *entire* grueling interview to get to the
cherry on the top of the icing coated cowpie that is their "plan"

CHARLIE ROSE: Will capitalism be different?

TIM GEITHNER: I think capitalism will be different, and the financial
distribution will be dramatically different. It’s already dramatically
different.

Yep. You heard it right:
"I think capitalism will be different"

Question: How can "capitalism be different" and still be capitalism?
Answer: When it is not longer capitalism, it is Statism.


He then continues:

TIM GEITHNER: Again, if you look at the scale of adjustment and restructuring in the
financial -- it’s already happened. It’s profound in scope already. So if
you just look at the system today relative to what was true three years ago
in terms of the institutions that existed then, then and their basic shape
has changed dramatically.

And there’s going to be more changes ahead. But I think it
will merge stronger. This will clean out a lot of the excesses and bad
practices, and those that don’t get cleaned out just by experience and
knowledge now, better regulation and oversight, better rules of the game,
enforced more cleanly will fix it.

Yep, we have seen it "it's already happened"
"It's profound in scope already."
"And there's going to be more changes ahead."
And don't forget the final word he used: "enforced" - root word: "force"
Whenever I heard that, I always ask the question: with what? a gun?

But as if it couldn't get any worse, Geithner goes on to say this:

TIM GEITHNER: Because this is not about ability; it’s about will.
And it’s about the will of government to do what’s necessary to act to fix
this. And I’m confident that this president is going to have the will to
do that.

That's right, he said: "it's about the will of the government to do what's
necessary to act to fix this."

Not the people, but "the government".

But just in case the above reading caused you to somehow believe that your
future as an American might change, let me assure you with Tim's final words:

CHARLIE ROSE: And the essence of the American experience will not
change?
TIM GEITHNER: Yes.

Huh? Where did he learn english?
Question: "And the essence of the American experience will not change?"
Answer: "Yes."

Perhaps he meant "no" but maybe he just let slip what we all already know:
The American Experience is going to change and in Tim's own words:
"It's already happened, it's profound in scope already and there's going to be more changes ahead."

Pass this around to your friends and family. People need to wake up and act!
BTW: You can get the entire transcript for this inteview here:
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10137


-- Andrew Fields
Soli Deo Gloria