Committee Approves Geithner

Jamie Dimon not in tune with Obama, too invested in big banks

(NEWSER) - A report today that JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has the inside track to replace Timothy Geithner as Treasury Secretary is getting mostly guffaws online, with even the conservative Wall Street Journal admitting that Dimon’s way too much an insider for the job just now. Indeed, chuckles Daniel Indiviglio , the New York Post story is “amusing” because, “for starters, Geithner isn’t going anywhere. Anyone who thinks he might be is nuts.” More»

Treasury secretary's pragmatic approach to financial crisis paid off

(NEWSER) - David Brooks leaps to the defense of Tim Geithner today, arguing that the treasury secretary's critics, who last spring were dismissing him as a hapless "Bambi in the headlights," were mostly wrong and he was mostly right. The system is now much healthier, TARP money is being repaid, and the administration's unwavering support for Geithner when he was taking flak from all sides looks impressive in retrospect, Brooks writes in the New York Times . More»

After decades of deference, legislators turn on central bank

(NEWSER) - Tim Geithner testified before the Senate Banking Committee yesterday, but as the Washington Post reports, it's not the Treasury but the Fed whose growing powers most worry legislators. Republicans and Democrats are both venting that Ben Bernanke's office did little to stop the excesses of the boom years, only to release $1 trillion to shore up giants like Bear Stearns and AIG. Sen. Richard Shelby told Geithner that the administration's proposal "represents a grossly inflated view of the Fed’s expertise," notes Politico. More»

(NEWSER) - President Obama wants to put the so-called dark markets under control, the New York Times reports, seeking congressional approval to regulate the byzantine world of derivatives trading—which played a large role in the current financial mess. In a letter to lawmakers, Treasury chief Timothy Geithner calls for an oversight system to be run either by the Securities and Exchange Commission or the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. More»

Tests on the biggest banks will make raising capital, paying it back easier

(NEWSER) - In an op-ed piece in the New York Times today, Timothy Geithner positions the stress tests—whose results are released officially today—as a way to restore longer-term confidence in the aftermath of the "tentative stability" achieved by the last administration. "We chose a strategy to lift the fog of uncertainty over bank balance sheets and to help ensure that the major banks, individually and collectively, had the capital to continue lending even in a worse than expected recession." More»