Analysis: White House, Dems backpedaling on AIG

[SirNitram]

Just curious I'm not and economist what would have been the ramification of letting all these banks and traders go bankrupt?

All the investments in them by various private citizens are gone. Any and ALL real assets they have will likely vanish into their derivative contracts before the bankruptcy protections kick in(Because that is SUCH A SMART MOVE they had to put it in 2005's bankruptcy bill), ending a major chunk of the industry that has bloated itself to 30% of the American economy.

[Count Chocula]

Charles Grassley IS a Republican.

I did not know that. So now I consider Assley a bandwagon-jumping waste of air, not just a waste of air.

So now we have Barney Frank saying "Thethe bonutheth are dethpicable and thould be reththinded,"

Cheap shot. Perfectly jake according to what I understand of SDN rules, but it is illustrative of character. However, attacking his lisp probably isn't enough; you should go after Barney Frank's sexual gender preferences, as well. I'm sure that it would add that extra 'oomph' to you whack-off fantasy of Laura Ingraham dildoing you.

Who the fuck are you, again?

[Duckie]

So now we have Barney Frank saying "Thethe bonutheth are dethpicable and thould be reththinded,"

Cheap shot. Perfectly jake according to what I understand of SDN rules, but it is illustrative of character. However, attacking his lisp probably isn't enough; you should go after Barney Frank's sexual gender preferences, as well. I'm sure that it would add that extra 'oomph' to you whack-off fantasy of Laura Ingraham dildoing you.

Who the fuck are you, again?

Apparantly not a homophobe like you, asshole.

Since Barney Frank doesn't talk like that, I'd posit that if you had written in Gullah or AAVE to talk about a black politician like Obama people would be calling you on it more loudly, but it's probably also because you're so retarded that nobody reads your posts and so hardly anyone sees you say things like that save when someone else quotes it.

[KrauserKrauser]

Sorry Duckie, but Barney Frank has such a bad speech impediment that he does indeed sound like Daffy Duck. Might not be the kindest way of quoting the man, but it's relatively accurate.

Also since when does making fun of someone's speech impediment make you a homophobe. It's not like Barney has the steriotypical "gay" lisp, he has a full on, hard to understand, tongue taking up all the space in his mouth speech impediment. I could have sworn that innaccurate personal attacks were against the rules somewhere, especially when you are claiming CC to be a homophobe when you yourself were the one that brought up the gay issue in the first place.

[Duckie]

Sorry Duckie, but Barney Frank has such a bad speech impediment that he does indeed sound like Daffy Duck. Might not be the kindest way of quoting the man, but it's relatively accurate.

Except he doesn't have a gay lisp unless you're deaf and watching Chocula type up the closed captions. He talks vaguely like Elmer Fudd, but that's nothing like a gay lisp. If I quoted Obama talking like any rapper or black stereotype, I'd be jumped over for racism. If I quote a gay man with a gay lisp he doesn't have, that's clearly an open target because apparantly all gay people talk the same and it's a valid insult to insult a gay man for a lisp he doesn't even have.

Let's run it down in some alternate universe where Obama and not Barney Frank has drawn Chocula's fearsome Right Wing Ire. He'd say something like

"Obama: Yo dawgs I'm gonna be budgizzlein' up this shit, we gonna pop a cap in the motherfuckin' economy whooo yeah I love me some fried chicken where tha white wimmins at."

And then I call that bullshit bullshit and get told by some white knight to defend him:

"Well, Obama does drop the g at the end of words."

And so I ask in response

"What the hell does that have to do with what you just said are you retarded or something"

Also since when does making fun of someone's speech impediment make you a homophobe. It's not like Barney has the steriotypical "gay" lisp, he has a full on, hard to understand, tongue taking up all the space in his mouth speech impediment.

Which is nothing like a gay lisp, and thus writing it as a gay lisp is retarded. Making fun of gay people for gay lisps when they don't have a gay lisp is like making fun of black people for talking in AAVE when they do not talk in AAVE. Further, using homosexuality as an insult is against board policies and generally marks you as a douche anyway.

I could have sworn that innaccurate personal attacks were against the rules somewhere, especially when you are claiming CC to be a homophobe when you yourself were the one that brought up the gay issue in the first place.

Let's look at that one again on the jumbotron replay machine, brought to you by Campbells Soup.

I could have sworn that innaccurate personal attacks were against the rules somewhere

especially when you are claiming CC to be a homophobe when you yourself were the one that brought up the gay issue in the first place.

Here, gentlemen, we see that Krauser is an idiot and contributes nothing to the board, because he can't even read or comprehend basic facets of English or even human interpersonal communication such as the concept of identity. He thinks all people who disagree with him or his rightard butt-buddy Chocula are the same exact person, and he further thinks:

Chocula: Obama: "I LOVE ME THE FRIED CHICKEN"
Some dude: Hey what the hell have you got against black people

means that some dude made ethnicity an issue and not Chocula.

Thus in obnoxious capital letters I state: FIND ME IN THIS THREAD WHERE I MENTIONED HOMOSEXUALITY OR BARNEY FRANK BEFORE THAT POST OR CONCEDE.

NOTE: Paul Krugman != Barney Frank, and "Treasury Department" is not a codeword for Gay.

[Count Chocula]

[snip strawman bullshit, false comparisons, blah blah blah] Thus in obnoxious capital letters I state: FIND ME IN THIS THREAD WHERE I MENTIONED HOMOSEXUALITY OR BARNEY FRANK BEFORE THAT POST OR CONCEDE.

Show ME where I made an issue of Rep. Frank's homosexuality or in any way implied his godawful method of speaking constitutes a "gay lisp." Take your time. I mocked Frank's speech pattern because he sounds like a stroke victim and I've listened to so much of his blather since August that it came easily to my mind.

If you really really want to see where the homosexual off topic shit started, read whackadoodle's post again.

EDIT: Frank sounds more like Daffy Duck after a stroke, and - darn it! - I just don't know how to type that style of speaking other than the way I did.

[Dark Hellion]

You know, I was going to post some rebuttal about the foolishness of making Duckie find concrete proof of an implication (what with an implication being all about avoiding saying exactly what you mean to imply) and noting Choc's past history as why such an assumption could be drawn (despite the comedy that it was readily recognized by a newer poster). But really, fuck that shit. Why do you post her Choc? You spew the same dittoheaded right-wing bullshit time and again, and then when you get called out, you run. Like here, or this comical bit of racism,and especially your cowardly disappearance here. Frankly, I am actually kind of sick of seeing you pop up, post some blatant bullshit that you stick to for 5 or so posts and then run like the cowardly little girl you are when you start seeing that it is getting away from you and your shit is really starting to stink. At least Krauser has the stones to stay and argue and Kast the brains to make his obfuscations last. But what do you have besides your Reaganite/randroid indignation at whatever you are indignant about, which I am clueless about because it changes with whatever the newest GOPer is saying.

And you find it difficult that people think you are a racist homophobe with the people and policy you parrot. Are you really that much of a moron? And I know I pop up in threads quite often to give you a hard time, but you are the perfect example of that comfortable middle-class conservative moron who is so utterly incapable of imaginative empathy that they cannot see solutions to real problems because they can only solve there own problems. All issues resolve down to some gut instinct what would I do bullshit scenario. All solutions are ideologies to propel and fuck everyone else as long as it betters me. I find it boring, disgusting, and I would say you are evil but I doubt you have the capacity to imagine that your actions and ideologies could actually cause real harm.

Fankly Choc, I want to know why you post on this board when it so often ends in you being pounded into the dirt with facts and running away? You don't seem to be learning, so I have to assume it is out of some ideological imperative. But I m at a loss to what that could be.

[KrauserKrauser]

As the stereotypical "gay" lisp has pronounced S's and Oooo's and a higher pitch, I don't see the comparison to CC's version of Frank. It's true that Barney is gay and that gay people are assigned a stereotypical form of lisp, however the "quote" in question in no way matches the "gay" lisp stereotype.

Strawman arguments that CC brought up his gayness is incorrect as Barney does tend to overpronounce his th's to the point that it is hard to understand him without concentration. It's more accurate that the man has severe problems with his S's which is even farther from the "gay" lisp stereotype. No where in that third of a sentence "quote" did CC bring up Barney's sexuality as that simply does not matter in the case of this argument.

Just because you don't like CC making fun of his speech impediment is one thing, making the leap that making fun of the way Barney Frank speaks = OMG HOMOPHOBE is completely unfounded. If you want to call out CC on some perceived homophobia, try again, you obviously are holding a grudge against him and are throwing around accusations without basis with respect to this argument.

[General Zod]

[snip strawman bullshit, false comparisons, blah blah blah] Thus in obnoxious capital letters I state: FIND ME IN THIS THREAD WHERE I MENTIONED HOMOSEXUALITY OR BARNEY FRANK BEFORE THAT POST OR CONCEDE.

Show ME where I made an issue of Rep. Frank's homosexuality or in any way implied his godawful method of speaking constitutes a "gay lisp." Take your time. I mocked Frank's speech pattern because he sounds like a stroke victim and I've listened to so much of his blather since August that it came easily to my mind.

If you really really want to see where the homosexual off topic shit started, read whackadoodle's post again.

EDIT: Frank sounds more like Daffy Duck after a stroke, and - darn it! - I just don't know how to type that style of speaking other than the way I did.

For once I'm actually inclined to agree with chocky. My initial impression was a retarded Daffy Duck impersonation, so I was actually scratching my head when someone brought up homosexuality in the mix. (Not that I'm saying I necessarily condone attacking the way someone talks, mind you).

[whackadoodle]

If you really really want to see where the homosexual off topic shit started, read whackadoodle's post again.

Cheap shot. Perfectly jake according to what I understand of SDN rules, but it is illustrative of character. However, attacking his lisp probably isn't enough; you should go after Barney Frank's sexual gender preferences, as well. I'm sure that it would add that extra 'oomph' to you whack-off fantasy of Laura Ingraham dildoing you.

I wasn't insinuating that you had attacked Frank because he was gay; I was suggesting that you should[i/]. After all, if you're going to preface your arguments by mocking some perceived weakness of the individual in question, you should go full bore. No point in being half an asshole, *I'm a smarmy asshole*?

EDIT: Frank sounds more like Daffy Duck after a stroke, and - darn it! - I just don't know how to type that style of speaking other than the way I did.

[Count Chocula]

In other news, like the company mentioned in the thread title, some AIG executives are returning their bonuses:

AIG Employees Hand Over Bonuses: NYAG Cuomo
By Grant McCool
Reuters
NEW YORK


Fifteen of 20 American International Group leading bonus recipients have agreed to give them back in full, said New York's top legal officer who is probing $165 million in executive pay at the troubled company bailed out by the U.S. government.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo told reporters on a conference call on Monday that he hopes to recoup $80 million of bonus payments made to Americans, or about half of the $165 million paid by the giant insurer on March 15.

An AIG spokeswoman said late Monday a "handful" of senior executives have resigned from its Financial Products unit, which Cuomo blamed last week for bringing the insurer to the brink of collapse. It was unclear if any of the executives with the top bonuses had resigned.

The spokeswoman declined to specify the number of resignations, noting they were "manageable," and said there were indications that more will follow.

Cuomo, who has pressed AIG and other banks and companies over the hot button issue of bonuses, said that so far he calculated that $50 million had been paid back by employees of the AIG Financial Products unit.

"A number of them (employees) have risen to the occasion and I applaud them," said Cuomo, whose office is investigating whether or not the bonuses were paid fraudulently under New York law. He said last week that contracts locked in most of the indviduals' bonuses at 2007 levels despite signs 2008 performance would be bleak.

Nine of the 10 executives who received top bonuses have agreed to return them, Cuomo said. He said about $80 million was paid to Americans, the rest outside of U.S. jurisdiction.

Cuomo has said he wanted to make public the names and details of bonus recipients, but he was assessing security and privacy of individuals following death threats against some employees.

"Our legal theory is fraudulent conveyance, and we think it is a powerful legal theory," Cuomo told reporters. "But if a person returns the money I don't it is in the public interest to name them."

He added that those people will see their name disappear from his list permanently.

AIG said in a statement that it was reviewing responses of other employees in the Financial Products division.

"We are deeply gratified that a vast majority of FP's senior leadership have expressed a willingness to forsake their recent retention payments," the statement said.

(Reporting by Grant McCool and Lilla Zuill; editing by Richard Chang)


Copyright 2009 Reuters News Service. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Copyright © 2009 ABC News Internet Ventures

Hoorah for peer pressure.

And now, the slippery slope gets a little steeper:

Geithner Seeks New Powers Over Financial Companies
Treasury's Geithner asks Congress for sweeping new powers over failing financial companies
By JEANNINE AVERSA
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON



Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner called on Congress Tuesday to grant him new powers to regulate huge financial companies like insurance giant AIG, whose failure would pose a grave danger to the U.S. financial system and the broader economy.

Specifically, Geithner wants powers similar to those of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which has authority to seize control of banks, take over their bad assets and sell good ones to competitors.

"AIG highlights broad failures of our financial system," Geithner told the House Financial Services Committee. "We must ensure that our country never faces this situation again."

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, appearing with Geithner, agreed. He said the government's bailout of troubled insurance giant American International Group Inc. underscores the urgent need to safely wind down financial giants on the verge of collapse and subject them to much stronger regulatory oversight.

Much of the discussion centered on ways to help the government better deal with future AIG-like companies whose failure could devastate the financial system and the drag down the economy.

Geithner made it clear he believes the treasury secretary should be granted unprecedented power, after consultation with Federal Reserve Board officials, to take control of a major financial institution and run it. The treasury chief is an official of the administration, unlike the FDIC, which is an independent regulatory agency.

Bernanke and Geithner were braced for a scolding before lawmakers over the handling of bonuses at American International Group Inc., which has become a symbol of reckless risk-taking on Wall Street.

For his part, the Fed chief said he wanted to sue to stop insurance giant AIG from paying millions in bonuses, but lawyers advised against doing so.

AIG is a globally interconnected colossus, with 74 million customers worldwide and operations in more than 130 countries. The government decided it was simply too big to let fail.

"Its failure could have resulted in a 1930s-style global financial and economic meltdown, with catastrophic implications for production, income and jobs," Bernanke told the panel.

As a result, the government has bailed out AIG four times, to the tune of more than $180 billion altogether. The company recently paid at least $165 million in bonuses to employees who worked in the financial products division that has been blamed for the its near-collapse. The bonuses came even as AIG reported a stunning $62 billion loss, the biggest in U.S. corporate history.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said Monday that 15 employees who received some of the largest bonuses from AIG have agreed to return them in full, totaling about $50 million.

Bernanke said it was "highly inappropriate to pay substantial bonuses" to the employees. Bernanke said he asked that the payments be stopped but was told that they were mandated by contracts agreed to before the government seized control of AIG on September 16.

"I then asked that suit be filed to prevent the payments," he said. Bernanke said that his legal staff counseled against this action on the grounds that Connecticut law provided for substantial punitive damages in the event any such suit failed. AIG's financial products division has a base in Connecticut.

AIG's decision to pay millions in bonuses has created a public relations headache for President Barack Obama at a time when he is trying to gin up public and political support for his economic policies, bank-rescue plan and overhaul of the nation's regulatory structure.

The FDIC-like powers being sought by Geithner would allow the treasury secretary to set up a conservatorship or receivership for a failing financial company. The government would have the power to take control of the firm and sell or transfer parts of it to reduce its risky position.

The secretary also would be allowed to make loans, buy assets, guarantee loans and make equity stakes to help stabilize the company. Importantly, Geithner said the government would have the power to "renegotiate or repudiate" a company's contracts, including those with its employees.

If such powers were in place last year, the government argues, it could have used them to better handle AIG and Bear Stearns, which were bailed out by the government, and Lehman Brothers, which wasn't rescued and was forced into bankruptcy.

Government bailouts of AIG, Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp. and others have put billions of taxpayers' dollars at risk over the past year and have angered the American public.


Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Copyright © 2009 ABC News Internet Ventures

[bold, large type and italics added]
So at first blush, it appears that Geithner wants broad authority to do as he sees fit to sieze federal control of "failing financial institutions." The FDIC has guidelines and precedents for use in bank regulation and seizure; what would Geithner's guidelines be? Would he make them up as he goes along, with input from Bernanke, whose Fed is prohibited by law from taking equity stakes (not that it's stopped them)? I'll withold opinion on the wisdom of this request until we get more details, but I'm skeptical, since it was a dismantling of banking regulations and nonexistent enforcement of current laws by the Fed and Treasury that enabled the corruption of AIG, Madoff, Allen Stanford, Fannie, Freddie, and so on and so forth.

Secondly, this proposal would, theoretically, give whoever was President the authority to take over any bank desired without checks and balances, as the proposal would give a political appointee sweeping powers. Again, we don't know what criteria would be used to determine a financial institution's health, so I'll wait to see where this goes.

Thirdly, what constitutes a "major financial institution?" Would GMAC or GE Finance fall under this umbrella? How about pension funds? There seems to be, at this point, a lot of wiggle room for the SecTreas to do whatever he wants.

[KrauserKrauser]

I hear that the last time we gave the Sec Treas sweeping and vaguely controlled powers, people tended to have money parties with the results.

Hopefully Obama / The Dems have learned from their and the previous administrations mistakes and will instead utilize the tools already available, ie the FDIC, and not invent super powers for a political appointee.

[Darth Wong]

Secondly, this proposal would, theoretically, give whoever was President the authority to take over any bank desired without checks and balances, as the proposal would give a political appointee sweeping powers. Again, we don't know what criteria would be used to determine a financial institution's health, so I'll wait to see where this goes.

Oh puh-lease ... how is this a "slippery slope"? Do you even understand that the slippery slope is a FALLACY? They're looking to seize control of failing banks and you're trying to make it into the next Nazi movement. And don't tell me there's no way to define "failing financial institutions".

[KrauserKrauser]

Sure there is a way to quantify it, the question is whether or not the same results can be done utilizing the existing processes. Through the FDIC, the insolvent banks could be broken up without having to randomly decide to turn the Sec Treas into the Judge, Jury and Executioner of the Financial Industry.

[Darth Wong]

Sure there is a way to quantify it, the question is whether or not the same results can be done utilizing the existing processes. Through the FDIC, the insolvent banks could be broken up without having to randomly decide to turn the Sec Treas into the Judge, Jury and Executioner of the Financial Industry.

What "super powers"? The banks in question are insolvent, ie- bankrupt. What exactly is lost if the government steps in and takes it over? What grand overarching tyranny is involved here? What is this "judge, jury, and executioner" horseshit supposed to mean? If it's bankrupt, it's already dead.

[Count Chocula]

That's why I'm waiting to see what criteria will be drawn up, and what institutions would be subject to, these proposed powers. Assuming, that is, Geithner actually gets what he wants; Congress giving Paulson carte blanche didn't work out too well last year, and I'd hope that Congress is smart enough to understand "once bitten, twice shy" before handing over a Congressional prerogative to the Executive branch.

[Big Phil]

Considering that a majority of Congress and Americans happily went along with Bush's unconstitutional policies that actually sent us down the path of tyranny by trampling our constitutional freedoms and guaranteed rights, I don't get the turmoil over Obama's policies that are designed to help save financial companies, and trample no one's constitutional rights or freedoms.

[Knife]

Sure there is a way to quantify it, the question is whether or not the same results can be done utilizing the existing processes. Through the FDIC, the insolvent banks could be broken up without having to randomly decide to turn the Sec Treas into the Judge, Jury and Executioner of the Financial Industry.

What "super powers"? The banks in question are insolvent, ie- bankrupt. What exactly is lost if the government steps in and takes it over? What grand overarching tyranny is involved here? What is this "judge, jury, and executioner" horseshit supposed to mean? If it's bankrupt, it's already dead.

lol, they think bankruptcy is a new beginning to free market, not an end. Government stepping in to run it after the government bails it out will violate capitalism.

[Knife]

Considering that a majority of Congress and Americans happily went along with Bush's unconstitutional policies that actually sent us down the path of tyranny by trampling our constitutional freedoms and guaranteed rights, I don't get the turmoil over Obama's policies that are designed to help save financial companies, and trample no one's constitutional rights or freedoms.

Your a traitor to capitalism, no body cares what happens to those undesirables in the big cities that don't have the motivation and American drive to get a home in the suburbs. But messing with those financing bankers is against everything George Washington ever stood for.




It's pretty much what I get out of people I argue with on the subject.

[KrauserKrauser]

What "super powers"? The banks in question are insolvent, ie- bankrupt. What exactly is lost if the government steps in and takes it over? What grand overarching tyranny is involved here? What is this "judge, jury, and executioner" horseshit supposed to mean? If it's bankrupt, it's already dead.

Then man up, grow some balls and use the laws already to handle bankrupt banks and financials via the FDIC. Instead, Obama is going to invent new powers for the Sec Treas. They are not going the step you are attributing to them by taking over ie nationalizing the banks. That is a different animal than what they are proposing. Instead of nationalization, the viability of the financial institutions will be up to the whim of the Treasury Secretary instead of the already tried and tested FDIC.

If it's bankrupt, we have a process in place to handle them, Obama is trying to reinvent the wheel with a Treasury Secretary that has a negative track record at best.

[Count Chocula]

But messing with those financing bankers is against everything George Washington ever stood for.

Not from G. Washington, but just for grins :

"I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale."
Thomas Jefferson

"You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the eternal God, I will rout you out."
Andrew Jackson: To delegation of bankers discussing the Bank Renewal Bill, 1832

[SirNitram]

Clearly this is a horrible idea. Just like when we did it in the eighties, and destroyed capitalism and banks eternally!

Waaaaaaaaait a second.


More seriously, the bitching here is crazy. Slippery slope fallacies, paranoia, conspiracy theories.. And no, they can't take over, say, AIG as they did IndyMac. Not yet.

[KrauserKrauser]

My main point is not that the banks / financial may need to be nationalized or whatever course of action is necessary, it's that we already have a process in place for this with the FDIC which already handled the IndyMac takeover as SirNitram mentioned.

Why reinvent the process by giving McTaxCheat Geithner more power and authority than he already has. Either they are admitting that the FDIC is useless and making Geithner the new FDIC or they are going out of their way to avoid the FDIC conservatorship process for some unknown unpublished reason.

My best guess is that Congress doesn't want to admit that the money for the bailout was basically pissed away as by the FDIC taking over, the banks would have to admit failure. Instead this measure lets Geithner take over without nationalizing and without them having to admit failure. So, it won't get them on a solid financial position and it won't force them to do anything differently. Sounds like SUCCESS!

[Knife]

My main point is not that the banks / financial may need to be nationalized or whatever course of action is necessary, it's that we already have a process in place for this with the FDIC which already handled the IndyMac takeover as SirNitram mentioned.

With the collapse of all the firms the last year, perhaps the current rules ain't good enough?

Why reinvent the process by giving McTaxCheat Geithner more power and authority than he already has.

Err...it didn't work? It didn't stop the massive recession we are in?

Either they are admitting that the FDIC is useless and making Geithner the new FDIC or they are going out of their way to avoid the FDIC conservatorship process for some unknown unpublished reason.

If it ain't broke don't fix it, right? Oh wait...

My best guess is that Congress doesn't want to admit that the money for the bailout was basically pissed away as by the FDIC taking over, the banks would have to admit failure. Instead this measure lets Geithner take over without nationalizing and without them having to admit failure. So, it won't get them on a solid financial position and it won't force them to do anything differently. Sounds like SUCCESS!

Or perhaps we can get past this asinine idea that these companies rise and fall on their own and get to the meat of the subject of how they affect the society around them when they both succeed and fail.

[KrauserKrauser]

With the collapse of all the firms the last year, perhaps the current rules ain't good enough?

Might that be because the process was stalled by the Bailout of the banks by Congress and Bush? They refused to let the FDIC into the process and deal with these insolvent banks, instead propping them up in their hospital bed with piles and piles of cash. The new plan is to instead make Geithner the new FDIC, even though the FDIC was not allowed to do what they were mandated to do in the first place. You can't claim that the FDIC is ineffective if you stop them from doing their job and then complain when they didn't do what was necessary.

Err...it didn't work? It didn't stop the massive recession we are in?

What didn't? The bailouts? Agreed! How is turning Geithner into a one man FDIC going to work when they didn't let the original FDIC do what was needed before?

We trust him more because of what exactly? His excellent history of handling his own finances? His glorious embracement of the ways of Greenspan? His amazing tenure at the head of the New York Federal Reserve?

If it ain't broke don't fix it, right? Oh wait...

It nevere got a chance to try and fix it in the first place. Congress and Bush were too busy stuffing money in their orifices to give the FDIC the chance to announce the time of death.

Or perhaps we can get past this asinine idea that these companies rise and fall on their own and get to the meat of the subject of how they affect the society around them when they both succeed and fail.

And this plan has anything to do with that how exactly? How does making Geithner into a one man FDIC beholden to the President that nominated him help in anyway?