Despite the obvious criminality of Obama's Treasury Secretary pick, Timothy Geithner, the Senate confirmed him. Do you remember the reasons they gave for accepting him anyway? It ranged from 'honest mistakes' to 'he's the only one who can help' to 'we just don't have enough time to find someone else'. While there's simply no addressing the idiots who believe these were 'honest mistakes', here's an example of the last two excuses:
A senior Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee said he believes Timothy Geithner's failure to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes is "completely unacceptable" and would in any other time disqualify Geithner from heading the Treasury Department. But the senator, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, decided to vote for Geithner because it would take too long to find a replacement candidate for the key cabinet post.
The larger problem for the man whose experience with the financial crisis made him "too big to fail" is that he didn't do a very good job. Geithner favored letting Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. die, which many blame for turning a mess into a catastrophe.
Incredible, isn't it? The Senate thinks that it's such an important position that they're willing to throw a tax-cheater into it whose primary qualification is that he's screwed up on a small scale what he's now supposed to fix on the biggest scale possible.
Genius!
What kind of alternate universe are they living in?? I mean, it's not as if you or I could go to a job interview, be proven to have failed miserably at that very job in a different company and admit to lying about it, and still get the job...right?
It turns out that the universe of common sense and justice is right yet again (I know, contain your shock). Just days later, it turns out that Geithner has already made his first major blunder in his new position as the Obamessiah's holy ATM:
Tim Geithner has by now settled into his new job at the Treasury.
What might be ahead is a trade war. At least, that's what many observers believe Geithner had in mind when he brought smiles to the face of New York senator and China-basher Chuck Schumer, by telling the Senate during his confirmation hearings that he believes China is "manipulating" its currency to maintain it at a low value so as to stimulate its exports.
"Manipulate" is the word that upsets the Chinese, and imports are the things that most upset the trade unions and congressional Democrats who see them as destroying jobs in America -- never mind the benefits to consumers as they prowl the aisles of Wal-Mart.
This was no casual blunder by Geithner. The administration rushed out a statement that Geithner was saying no more than President Obama had said on the campaign trail. And Geithner was reading from a prepared statement. Premeditation matters.
Geithner is well aware of Chinese sensibilities. He and his family have a long association with, and knowledge of, the politics of Asia and China. It would have been unusual in past years for any important Chinese official to visit the U.S. and not have a private tête-à-tête with Geithner, who has studied Chinese and Japanese, and lived in India, Thailand and Japan, as well as in China. Tim Geithner knows just what will set the Chinese leaders' teeth on edge.
Which he most certainly did.
What might be ahead is a trade war. At least, that's what many observers believe Geithner had in mind when he brought smiles to the face of New York senator and China-basher Chuck Schumer, by telling the Senate during his confirmation hearings that he believes China is "manipulating" its currency to maintain it at a low value so as to stimulate its exports.
"Manipulate" is the word that upsets the Chinese, and imports are the things that most upset the trade unions and congressional Democrats who see them as destroying jobs in America -- never mind the benefits to consumers as they prowl the aisles of Wal-Mart.
This was no casual blunder by Geithner. The administration rushed out a statement that Geithner was saying no more than President Obama had said on the campaign trail. And Geithner was reading from a prepared statement. Premeditation matters.
Geithner is well aware of Chinese sensibilities. He and his family have a long association with, and knowledge of, the politics of Asia and China. It would have been unusual in past years for any important Chinese official to visit the U.S. and not have a private tête-à-tête with Geithner, who has studied Chinese and Japanese, and lived in India, Thailand and Japan, as well as in China. Tim Geithner knows just what will set the Chinese leaders' teeth on edge.
Which he most certainly did.
The problem here is that China is the one funding a huge chunk of our spiraling-out-of-control debt (thank you, Obamessiah). If they get sufficiently ticked off, they may decide to stop loaning us money or take even more drastic economic measures against us that could cause massive inflation or other problems. It's not as if they've been particularly warm and fuzzy toward us over the past couple years, anyway, and this certainly won't help. A trade war against China is the last thing America needs right now, but that's what Geithner has potentially started.
All economic danger aside, what makes this all even more humiliating is the VP Joe Biden -- the Gaffe Master himself -- had to step in to try to correct the mistake. I agree with Hot Air's analysis:
People wondered whether Geithner failed to pay his taxes out of a desire to evade them or total incompetence. I had assumed the former, but I'm beginning to think that it might be the latter. Gee, I just can't wait to see what the only man qualified for this position will do next … with over a trillion dollars at his disposal.
Scaaaaaryyyyyy...!
There's my two cents.
Sources:
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/01/30/geithner-as-good-at-job-as-he-is-at-taxes/
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=aO11S7QUmxrM&refer=home
http://www.dcexaminer.com/opinion/columns/IrwinStelzer/Geithners-China-blunder-could-spark-trade-war38690682.html
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZTJjYWYwZDcwM2ZhN2RiMmI2NGM0MDVlOWViYWI4MGI=
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