Incompetence, Peter Principle, arrogance, ego, elitism, etc., etc ... dammit, I'm running out of adjectives to describe Geithner.
But, William D. Cohan lays out a strong inside-the-Beltway case for Little Timmy both wanting, and probably getting, the job:
The usual list of highly qualified candidates to replace Bernanke -- including Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury secretary and Harvard University president; Janet Yellen, a current vice chairman of the Fed; and Alan Krueger, the precocious chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers -- misses the person who probably wants it the most and continues to have Obama’s ear on a regular basis: Geithner.
Doorknob help us all ... the Fed will be cutting all sorts of backdoor deals with the banksters. Even more so if Jaime Dimon is named Geithner's replacement at Treasury.
Last spring, Geithner told Obama he wanted to leave Treasury as soon as possible and return to New York so that he could rejoin his family, while his youngest child was still in high school. But Obama prevailed on Geithner to stick around until after the election. And he remains in Washington to help Obama negotiate a deal on spending and taxes with Congress.
Had Geithner been serious about wanting to leave town, he probably would have thrown his hat into the ring to become president of Dartmouth College, his alma mater. But that position went to Philip Hanlon, the provost of the University of Michigan, without Geithner’s name being mentioned. Expect Geithner to seek a short-term sinecure at a liberal think-tank, such as the Brookings Institution, or to return to the Council on Foreign Relations, or to cash in as an adviser to a hedge fund (as Summers did at D.E. Shaw & Co. after he left Treasury) while he awaits the possibility of getting nominated as Fed chairman.
That said, be honest. Even if you're an off-the-boards Obamiac, would such a move really surprise you?
The only possible condolence is that he might be better at the job than Summers. But, you know? I'm not even sure about that.
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