OK, so we don't necessarily see eye-to-eye on the reasons, but at least Democrat Maria Cantwell is asking the right question!
Why Does Tim Geithner Still Have a Job?
A Democratic senator said on Monday that she's "not sure" why Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner still has his job, calling his financial reform plans "appalling."
"I'm not sure," Cantwell responded, "because David Gregory had him almost -- trying to get a straight answer out of him. What the Treasury Secretary basically said was, yes, banks should take more risks and we should continue the loopholes and that is really appalling because, right now, we know that lack of transparency has caused this problem with the U.S. economy and Wall Street ... So the Treasury Secretary is dodging the issue."
Regulation isn't the problem. The entire central banking system is the problem!
Can someone say "cronyism?"
More interesting stuff from the HuffPo ...
How The Federal Reserve Bought The Economics Profession
The Federal Reserve, through its extensive network of consultants, visiting scholars, alumni and staff economists, so thoroughly dominates the field of economics that real criticism of the central bank has become a career liability for members of the profession, an investigation by the Huffington Post has found.
This dominance helps explain how, even after the Fed failed to foresee the greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression, the central bank has largely escaped criticism from academic economists. In the Fed's thrall, the economists missed it, too.
"The Fed has a lock on the economics world," says Joshua Rosner, a Wall Street analyst who correctly called the meltdown. "There is no room for other views, which I guess is why economists got it so wrong."
One critical way the Fed exerts control on academic economists is through its relationships with the field's gatekeepers. For instance, at the Journal of Monetary Economics, a must-publish venue for rising economists, more than half of the editorial board members are currently on the Fed payroll -- and the rest have been in the past.
In the field of economics, the chairman remains a much-heralded figure, lauded for reaction to a crisis generated, in the first place, by the Fed itself. Congress is even considering legislation to greatly expand the powers of the Fed to systemically regulate the financial industry.
When dissent has arisen, the Fed has dealt with it like any other institution that cherishes homogeneity.
Take the case of Alan Blinder. Though he's squarely within the mainstream and considered one of the great economic minds of his generation, he lasted a mere year and a half as vice chairman of the Fed, leaving in January 1996.
Rob Johnson, who watched the Blinder ordeal, says Blinder made the mistake of behaving as if the Fed was a place where competing ideas and assumptions were debated. "Sociologically, what was happening was the Fed staff was really afraid of Blinder. At some level, as an applied empirical economist, Alan Blinder is really brilliant," says Johnson.
In closed-door meetings, Blinder did what so few do: challenged assumptions. "The Fed staff would come out and their ritual is: Greenspan has kind of told them what to conclude and they produce studies in which they conclude this. And Blinder treated it more like an open academic debate when he first got there and he'd come out and say, 'Well, that's not true. If you change this assumption and change this assumption and use this kind of assumption you get a completely different result.' And it just created a stir inside--it was sort of like the whole pipeline of Greenspan-arriving-at-decisions was disrupted."
It didn't sit well with Greenspan or his staff. "A lot of senior staff...were pissed off about Blinder -- how should we say? -- not playing by the customs that they were accustomed to," Johnson says.
A former Fed economist disagreed. "I was an economist at the Fed for more than ten years and kept getting in trouble for things I'm proud of. I hear you, loud and clear," he said, asking not to be quoted by name for, well, the reasons laid out above.
Make sure you read the whole thing here!
Oh, c'mon now ... These are the "best and brightest," who are working diligently to help all of us mere peasants.
The House That Goldman Sachs Built (emphasis added)
The U.S. Treasury Department is the central headquarters of Wall Street, and Timmy Geithner is its demigod. The coup of the Treasury Department, which promotes itself as the “steward of U.S. economic and financial systems,” means an economy and financial system run by and for the Wall Street oligarchy, with Goldman Sachs spearheading the ruling class.
Bloomberg runs a “breaking news” headline at the top of its page this morning: “Geithner Aides Reaped Millions Working for Banks, Hedge Funds.” It summarizes what we already knew — Timothy Geithner’s aides/advisors/kingpins are reaping huge salaries from Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street megalomania brokers at the same time that they influence policy that affects the entire economy and financial system.
The justification for this cozy arrangement never wavers — we need these “top people” (brilliant people that cannot be found anywhere else) who have knowledge of the markets and financial system. Lynn Turner, a former chief accountant at the SEC, asks, “You just wonder, who is representing middle Americans?” No one, Miss Turner. The socialist-corporate oligarchy has become institutionalized within the American System, and all Main Street can do is elect presidents who further enrich the evil institution and call it “security” (Bush) or “change” (Obama). And the Federal Reserve overlords call it a path to “prosperity” for the middle class.
This isn't a bunch of "conspiracy" nonsense either. This is organized crime and corruption. It must be taken seriously.
The Federal Reserve is a legalized counterfeiting operation. It's time that "we the people" bring it to its end.
