SocraticGadfly: Geithner and Obama Admin to cut bank execs slack

January 31, 2009

Geithner and Obama Admin to cut bank execs slack

The Obama Administration’s plans to continue helping the financial sector do NOT include plans to tighten the screws on executive compensation, despite President Obama’s public-consumption carping about executive bonuses.

The story goes on to tout the administration’s idea of taking multiple approaches to financial sector problems. All well and good. But, I don’t see how you can do that without a “bad bank” idea as part of the picture; that’s not counting George Soros’ idea of a “good bank” as well as a bad bank.

Nor does the article mention Geithner’s resistance to anything that smacks of bank nationalization, which is probably connected to his resistance to a bad bank idea.

He claims it’s “complicated” to do a bad bank, but since Sweden did it, in the 1990s, as part of, ahem, bank nationalization, this would NOT involve reinventing the wheel.

So, we have Geithner (and behind him, Summers, you can bet), taking a pseudo-comprehensive approach to dealing with financial sector problems, and tied to that, Obama issuing a “for public consumption only” statement on the issue, like he did with NAFTA during the Democratic primary season, when he got busted at it.

Question: Will the MSM, or MSLBs (especially those, like TPM, with a reporting staff), ask Obama how his statement squares with Treasury comments, re executive compensation?

C’mon, now. You know the answer.

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