Tim Geithner refuses to give straight answer.

[GeezerMan]

LINK

Congressman Brad Sherman grills Geithner on the possibliity of derivatives made today might be backed by US taxpayers in the future. Geithner avoids giving a straight answer here

 

[StageLeft]

You can tell with Geithner he is very good with words. I bet he has wooed and awed many before him as he's moved up the ranks. He sounds as smart as a whip and when he talks you're like "Wow, this guy really is the sh*t!". Oh well, I think we've seen that before. In any case, I found his answer unsatisfactory. He was trying to obfuscate but the question was quite easy. The answer is obviously no.

 

[soccerballtux]

Smoke and mirrors, the usual coming from the Fed. So for the most part I've endorsed their actions in the past, but the stuff that's going on now is too much. I'm starting to believe we should audit them and make them accountable for things like this.

It's one thing to say "they screwed up, it's systemic risk, so we are going to fix it by bailing them out/buying them". It's something entirely different to not refuse to bail out new derivatives going forward when we know they're a problem.

edit: Lol-- I like the guy asking the question-- "too interconnected to fail, maybe not....too WELL connected to fail..." with a smile.

edit 2: Haha, this is great, he's putting his thumb down and Geithner is just trying to get out of it. All we want Geither to commit to is holding the banks accountable to stop creating systemic risk.

 

[Genx87]

Sounds like we should expect a bailout of the derivative markets? That makes complete and utter sense.

 

[soccerballtux]

Guys how do we hedge against this stuff? This is a clear sign more is coming.
Flight to quality isn't an option when the "quality" you're talking about is Tbonds, the things financing all this. What are some secure long term ways to store money? GDX has mirrored .dji and just about every other stock on the market..

 

[Lemon law]

My guess is that Geithner is also ignorant of all the derivative bets out there.

Face the facts, the mortgage crisis is finite, has a bottom,and is still backed by real assets.

Sadly, our bankers and international bankers also bet the moon and the stars they did not own on insurgence policies they thought could not fail. And there is so much out there in the form of credit default swaps that there is not enough money in the universe to pay off those totally wreck less bets. And since the credit default swap derivatives market has no bottom, its time to do the only rational thing possible, and call all those bets expost facto null and void. With the bankers obligated to pay back the premiums on the insurgence they sold out of their own personal pockets, because all the ill gotten gains they made came from commissions on the sales of these bogus investments.

Geitner seems to be a slow learner and a victim of bait and switch, at first he thought the credit default swaps had a bottom, so he tried to bail them out, and now as time goes by, he learns that problem is always bigger bigger and bigger than he thought.

Sooner or later we all have to tumble to the fact that we either ALL GO DOWN or just throw our idiot bankers to the wolves and let angry buyers of their worthless credit default swaps sue them for every penny they are basically not worth. Defaulted credit default swaps are already at least 60 trillion and I suspect it will be more like double that or more.

The buyers and sellers of those credit default swaps were idiots, and I have no sympathy for them. Let them take the fall, because I will be damned if I want to bail their sad and sorry asses out.

 

[EXman]

NO MORE BAILOUTS TO NON REAL PEOPLE!

Let those F'ers BURN!!!!

 

[Siddhartha]

Originally posted by: GeezerMan
LINK

Congressman Brad Sherman grills Geithner on the possibliity of derivatives made today might be backed by US taxpayers in the future. Geithner avoids giving a straight answer here

His answer is: I don't know, maybe.

 

[trenchfoot]

Geithner's job is to protect and serve. Who he protects and who he serves just so happen to be in some significant ways two diametrical entities. Good luck to him in his bid to further the cause of alchemy.