I’ve lost track of how long it has been since Geithner announced his plan for the financial system that was only the vaguest outline, with the promise of details to come. There is still no plan. But Geithner made it clear that one of key components was a private-public partnership to take toxic assets off the bank’s balance sheets.
I think we can assume that any effort involving private entities is dead. No company in its right mind is going to go anywhere near the Obama administration and it’s one party Congress. Every day more and more conditions are forced on banks that received taxpayer funds - all after the fact. I certainly agree that the government has bought a seat at the table, but it is going beyond that. All they get is abuse and Congress micromanaging every part of their business. Retribution and social engineering trumps solving our county’s problems.
That means that the Democrat’s moralizing and demagoguery have now guaranteed that the taxpayers will have to fund 100% of fixing the mess going forward. Companies aren’t going to touch the Obama/Pelosi/Reid with a 39 ½ foot pole. Who needs the abuse?
The AIG debacle has the Democrats practically eating their young. The “Dodd Amendment” exempts AIG’s contractual retention bonuses from the compensation restrictions in the "stimulus" bill. Dodd admits he put it in, but that it was tinkered with in committee. Maybe it would have actually made sense to allow the members time to read the “stimulus” bill before voting on it. Geithner was the head of the NY Fed which implemented the original AIG bailout, and has known about the bonuses for months. Now the Obama administration is saying they just found out about the whole situation this month, never mind that Obama’s now Treasury Secretary has been up to his neck in this since the beginning. Obama is throwing Geithner under the bus by saying he personally just learned about the bonuses last Thursday while at the same time saying he has “Complete confidence in Geithner”. The Obama administration appears to be in complete chaos over the matter.
Instead of accepting that mistakes were made by everyone, Wall Street, main street, Congress, etc. and just focus on doing the right things to get it fixed, the Democrats are more concerned with politics and punishing the very people they need to get the financial system back on track. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything more counterproductive that what Obama and the Democrat’s one party rule is doing to our country in the midst of this economic crisis.