I love the blogosphere, because I love headlines like this: "Geithner Plan Smackdown Wrap".
Yes, The Shriller Two is on the case. And it's ugly. To me, this is Yves's nut graf:
Treasury Secretary Geithner presented today what in essence was a plan to come up with a plan. I now understand why he is so loath to have government run banks. He presumably sees himself as an elite bureaucrat, as his glittering resume attests. Yet the man has a deadline to come up with a proposal, yet puts off presenting it twice (the "oh he has to work on the stimulus bill" is as close to "the dog ate my homework" as I have ever seen in adult life). What he served up as an initiative is weeks to months, depending on the item, away from being operational (if even then; the public-private asset purchase program will either not see the light of day, or be far narrower and smaller than what is needed).
And in case you think I am being unfair, yesterday I got an e-mail from a political consultant who got a report on the Senate Banking Committee briefing by the Treasury the night before the announcement. No briefing books, no documents. He deemed it to be no plan. That assessment was confirmed today by a participant at the session, who said that the details were so thin that one staffer asked, "So what, exactly, is the plan?" and repeated questions from one persistent Senator got "absolutely no answers".
Thus Geither's belief that government can't manage assets is sheer projection of his own inability to deliver. The FDIC winds up banks all the time. During the S&L crisis, as William Black reminds us, FSLIC appointed receivership managers that later research determined did reduce losses. Sweden, Norway, and Chile all nationalized (and relatively quickly reprivatized) dud banks during their financial crises. This isn't like trying to go the moon (which was a government initiative, lest we forget). There are plenty of models and lots of good proposals. What is lacking is will. History says that an aggressive, take-out-the-dead-banks program is the fastest and all-in cheapest way out of a financial crisis. But if you believe that something will not work, as Geithner does, it isn't at all hard to produce that outcome.
[Pounds forehead on desk]
If this is 11-dimensional chess, which dimension is my pony in?
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I love Paul Krugman
and I don't care who knows it. Also Jamie Galbraith, and Dr. Doom, and Anglachel, and Yves, and... oh, if I've left you off this list, it's just that I'm too rapturous to recall.
I count on this love that dare not speak its name to get me through what is to come. Lack of food, lack of health care, lack of housing, all that...
---------------
We can't afford not to have single-payer!
NPR very kindly explained that Geithner doesn't have assistants
in place yet. Or something. And there was a big inauguration. Yeah, that's the ticket....
Seriously, the reporter did give the first excuse for there not being an actual Plan. Then added that of course Obama and his team knew since last Spring that there were some really, really serious bankster problems to deal with.
And Obama did consult with Paulson and Bernanke every day for TARP I and whipped for it. d
Looks like a mess to me. Wish us luck.
Still, with Obama essentially annointed by the Village
since February 2008, and with Paul ""Big Paulie" Volcker on his team, you'd expect a plan. Unless this is the plan. First, let everybody with cash buy up the rubble. Then inflate our way out of our debt. After all, we've got nukes.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
But, hey, some people will get $7.70 a week in tax cuts--Whoohoo
Or is that boohoo?
I'd rather have seen that money go to something with more of a multiplier effect or just a longer lasting effect as from R&D for, oh, NIH or green renewable energy.
But, $7.70! Every week!
Now, during the primaries didn't Obama pooh-pooh Hillary's suggestion for a gas tax holiday? That it might help those most desperately poor and weighing a gallon of gas (then in the $3-4/gallon range) against buying a gallon of milk for the family? And it wasn't important or worth it?
$7.70. But, wait, they don't get till next year after filing taxes or how is it being distributed? A single check WalMart can latch onto?
Brad Delong on Obama's TARP II aka BARF-- Obama's BARF...?
(That was not nice. Raps own knuckles.)
Via Agonist.
The above is why I've been trying to remember to refer to it as the Obama BARF or Bailout or Nom du Jour Plan. Don't always do it, which shows the power of the MCM in setting the wording for any discussion. If they name it, they own it?
Point 2 is something Obama and his camp are very, very good at doing.
There are 8 more points Delong makes.
And, now, to sleep, perhance to dream -- or have nightmares.
barf
in another dimension = bones and raw food [which is probably the dimension where your pony ended up]
Our "Best & Brightest"
Oh, this is so very rich. A plan to plan for a plan.
Really, how'd you guys call so exactly before the point? This is a quintessential barf. "Timmeh!" Geithner got up there, barfed on the stage, and asked if he could be sent home, and that'd he'd bring his work back to school fully completed, tomorrow.
Poor, little Timmeh.
But, we've always been at war with Eastasia...