Bald-Faced Lie to American People
Shock and lie.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner “finds out” that AIG is paying out $165 million in bonuses on March 10, 2009. He waits a couple days to tell President Barack Obama.
But wait. How did Geithner “find out” about the AIG bonuses on March 10, when Congressman Jim Crowley (D) of New York questioned Geithner in an open House Ways & Means Committee hearing on March 3 about how the bonus payouts to AIG could be stopped?
Let’s go back in time a little more. February 28, Federal Reserve officials said they warned the Treasury about the upcoming big bonus payout to AIG.
January 27, a Bloomberg article is written by Hugh Son about the same AIG bonus, with quotes from Congressmen Elijah Cummings and Sen. Richard Shelby.
Is it true that Geithner couldn’t recall that he knew about the AIG retention bonuses until March 10? After all, Geithner has been working hard at solving the credit crisis, and until recently was all alone there at the Treasury Department. Mr. Obama recently took action to address the previously empty top slots at the Treasury under Geithner; he has now named or nominated four people to the top five Treasury positions.
Now that Geithner won’t be toiling all alone at Treasury, hopefully he’ll be less tired and more able to honestly answer questions.
The question remains, why did Geithner lie about when he knew about the AIG retention bonuses? There’s plenty of substantiated data to clear up the transparency problem that Geithner is having.
Perhaps it’s time the American people give a shout out about this lie to their leaders in D.C. A simple phone call to congressmen and the president to let them know we Americans don’t appreciate being lied to would do wonders to remind them that they work for the American people. And honesty is not only the best policy, it’s one we demand.
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I am waiting for Obama to claim, “That’s not the Tim Geithner I knew.”
Geitner is a creature of the Fed, and of Wall Street. He is precisely the Tim Geitner Obama knew, and he’s exactly what we should expect, regardless of the party in power. Look at Paulson and how he funneled money to Goldman Sachs and how torrents of taxpayer money continues to flow through AIG to pay off their counterparties at 100 cents on the dollar. This is not liberal or conservative behavior, it’s “Good old Boy” behavior, and the lack of transparency we’re seeing seems like a byproduct of tidal flows of Wall Street money flooding Congress for the past….well, forever.
Geithner is a protege of former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, whom he worked for at Treasury in the 90s. Rubin was lauded as a wonderful Treasury Secretary for several years after his tenure. As Treasury Secretary, Rubin opposed any kind of oversight of credit derivatives, which is a huge (but not sole) cause of institutional failures on the Street. Since then, the shine has been tarnished by his involvement in Citigroup. Both parties have been too willing to hire people directly from Wall Street, particularly Goldman Sachs.
Geithner, however, was sold as being different because he was not a Goldman man, not had he ever really been an employee of a FI. It is obvious that, whether he worked for a Wall Street firm or not, he is still of the easy money mindset that has been prevalent on the Street for way too long. It’s like dealing with crack addicts.
We must believe the best of him. G. probably had convinced himself that he had never…
Or he convinced himself that he, no He!!! could not be trapped by facts like other people…
Or else he is incompetent.
Delusional, immature, or incompetent? My guess is immature. He is old, and so probably wishes he were young. But he has responsibilities which preclude acting the age he wishes he were and so his wish comes out in the mode of an adolescent rebel who believes in a personal fable.