Geithner Is As Dumb As a Sack of Hammers

I'm so sick of government, and for you folks that live outside the Tri-state area (NJ,CT,NY) and would like to know how things turn out when Uncle Sam takes the reigns, please just visit the DMV in lower Manhattan or Brooklyn. If you walk out without having taken a life(maybe your own) you are one of the lucky ones. The government would screw up jello and f*** up the outcome of a winning lottery ticket. Yet they just------keep----on------talking.

The number one job/priority of the Treasury Secretary is to defend the dollar, kind of like waking up in the morning with he innate notion that we are to protect, love and feed our children, unless that Treasury Secretary is Timothy Geithner. Today at the Council on Foreign Relations, Timbo said this:

"I haven’t read the governor’s proposal. He’s a very thoughtful, very careful distinguished central banker. I generally find him sensible on every issue," Geithner said, saying that however his interpretation of the proposal was to increase the use of International Monetary Fund's special drawing rights -- shares in the body held by its members -- not creating a new currency in the literal sense.

"We’re actually quite open to that suggestion – you should see it as rather evolutionary rather building on the current architecture rather than moving us to global monetary union," he said.

"The only thing concrete I saw was expanding the use of the [special drawing rights]," Geithner said. "Anything he’s thinking about deserves some consideration."

The continued use of the dollar as a reserve currency, he added, "depends..on how effective we are in the United States...at getting our fiscal system back to the point where people judge it as sustainable over time."

UPDATE: Evidently sensing a gaffe, moderator Roger Altman told Geithner that it would be "useful" to return to the question, and asked if he foresaw a change in the dollar's centrality.

"I do not," Geithner said, adding several forceful promises, including, "We will do what's necessary to say we're sustaining confidence in our financial markets."

Let's face it, the man is an idiot.

Giddy Up, It's Time To Ride

" You can not solve a problem with the same mentality it took to create it." - Albert Einstein

What can I say? This is a big week for the market. We have the stimulus package ready to be signed, and Tim Geithner will try and save the financial world as we know it at some point tomorrow. A recipe of shock and awe is needed and "expected" by the markets and anything short of that could be met with disaster. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that the market has always responded positively to the promise of bail out funds from Uncle Sam, only to sell off the "good" news quickly. It must be different this time and the market Gods know it.

The script will be the same, and the financials will have the starring role as they will be the obvious beneficiaries of good news, but they will be taken to the wood chipper fast if Geithner falls short. Good luck this week and try not to get caught leaning the wrong way.

No Confidence No Leadership No Buyers

We are off to a blazing start as the man who will be treasury secretary and whose duties include being grand wizard if the IRS doesn't pay his own taxes. Is he sorry or just sorry that he got caught? True change you can count on. Another suit who feels he is Teflon and above the fray. Would we overlook a small business owner who hasn't paid his taxes in four years? He claims he doesn't understand how do effectively complete a tax return. Go get em Biff, now get out there and oversee the biggest economy in the world. Hope he pays all penalties and interest. Enough said.

John Thaine is gone, but before he left, he bought a $35,000 commode for his office and spent over a $1 million of shareholders money on decorating his office while he hung his traders from the rafters. From Goldman to NYSE to Merrill to BAC to where? Hope he at least had the courtesy to clean the commode before the door hit him in the ass. Good riddance. I compare a good CEO to a fundamentally sound quarterback in football, just "don't lose the game". So many of these guys were thrown into sweet situations and all they had to do was not lose the game. The stage was set. They still found a way.

I'll be back in a bit.