Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Who Is Geithner Kidding?

The Treasury announced a record $75 billion quarterly refunding auction next week. The number of Treasury auctions have doubled from 36 to 72 over the past year. In the same breath, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner "has pledged to reduce government borrowing to a sustainable path once the economy returns to firmer footing."

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/treasury-plans-to-sell-a-record-amount-of-debt-2009-08-05

Seriously, who is he kidding? He made a similar comment to an audience of Chinese university students in his spring trip to China and they laughed at him. The reality is that the Obama Government essentially quadrupled the spending deficit in it's first year from the deficit level in Bush's last term ($500 billion to $2 trillion, roughly).

But I would love to see the real spending numbers, and thus the real deficit, because multi-billion spending programs like the war on terror and the Government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac AND the Wall Street bailout are "off budget," meaning the costs and the deficit effects of that spending is not reported in the official "budget."

Furthermore, the tax revenue base declined by record amount not seen since 1932:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32275055/ns/politics-more_politics/

So our spending, on and off budget, continues to increase by $100's of billions, and the revenues to pay for that spending is declining at record pace. How the heck can Geithner possibly expect anyone to take him seriously when you look at what the real numbers are and the facts behind the real spending and the real source of Government revenue?

As an aside, I would like to express that, as reported by the NY Times, et al., the expletive-filled, hour long tirade by Geithner in a meeting with other members of our Government, including some prominent women, is not only completely unprofessional, it is a complete disgrace to our country and irreparably inexcusable. Coming from a Wall Street environment which tolerates quite a bit of unprofessional behavior, if I had put on a curse-filled display like in a meeting with other professionals, especially women, I would have been fired.

4 comments:

  1. Great Article!
    "As an aside, I would like to express that, as reported by the NY Times, et al., the expletive-filled, hour long tirade by Geithner in a meeting with other members of our Government, including some prominent women, is not only completely unprofessional, it is a complete disgrace to our country and irreparably inexcusable."

    I could not agree more.

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  2. Thanks for the feedback. Geithner typifies the incompetence and corruption in the Obama administration.

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  3. "I would have been fired"

    You must have come from a background which actually practised some level of civility.

    TBH, the participants in this current administration appear to be a group of lightweights and one couldn't ask for a worse time for this kind of selection.

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  4. ripoff: we behaved like a lockerroom on our trading desk, but in meetings. an outburst like Geithner would have gotten us fired. Human Resources started cracking down on "offensive behavior" toward females in the mid-1990's. In fact, they had to move our junk bond desk to a separate floor cuz we were so rowdy LOL.

    This group is not only lightweights, they are owned by Wall Street.

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