A Closer Look At Treasury Sec. Geithner

Unflappable, International, And Up Early: The Man With One Of America's Toughest Jobs

(AP) 
Geithner's big break came when he caught the approving eye of Summers, then a treasury undersecretary, who became his mentor and mental sparring partner. Summers, who followed Rubin as treasury secretary, now says he and Geithner work together so closely on Obama's economic team that "if one of us explains something and it's unclear, the other will try to fill in because we tend to be able to follow each other's thoughts."

Stylistically, though, the two are at opposite ends of the spectrum: Summers, the say-anything bulldog; Geithner, the quiet, calm guy in the roomful of egos.

Stephanie Flanders, who worked at the Treasury during the Clinton years and now is the BBC's economics editor, remembers Geithner as a skilled manager.

"Tim gave the impression of being conciliatory and low key, but he actually was still able to get people to do what he wanted them to do," she said. "Everyone sort of finds themselves doing his bidding without realizing it."

The 1990s had its own set of financial crises to be contained - Mexico, Brazil, Korea, Thailand and more - and it was the threesome of Rubin, Summers and Greenspan who repeatedly rode to the rescue. Their brain trust of bright young minds at the department included Geithner, by then in his mid-30s.

"He was the senior technician of the group and we relied very heavily on his input and his judgment - despite the fact that he looked like he was 25 years old," Greenspan recalls now.

--

After a stint at the International Monetary Fund, Geithner made it to the short list when the New York Fed was looking for a new president in 2003. Search chairman Peter Peterson, then head of the New York Fed's board, says there were worries about how tough Geithner would be, particularly given his age and quiet manner in job interviews.

"That's the last thing you have to worry about," Peterson says Summers assured him.

"Grab him before he has a change of mind," Greenspan advised.

Geithner got the job, and had time to enjoy the boom times before the bust. He says he spent his years at the New York Fed trying to strengthen regulatory protections, "but many of those things didn't have enough traction" to prevent what lay ahead.

By 2008, Geithner was part of a new troika trying to avert calamity, teaming with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke.

Month after month, the trio scrambled to put out fires with names like Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Citigroup, Wachovia, AIG.

Geithner was the man on the spot, making the phone calls to sometimes paralyzed chief executives, negotiating the deals, plying with persuasion at some points, with four-letter words at others.

At times he would function on as little as six hours of sleep over three days. During one crunch period, Bernanke sent flowers to Geithner's wife, already not seeing much of her husband.

Paulson credits Geithner for bringing to the effort an astute understanding of the intersection of policy, politics and markets - a difficult threesome to get right.

"He thinks through the consequences of everything he does, works around corners," says Paulson.

--

Geithner's knowledge of both Wall Street and Washington was a big plus as the president-elect looked to build a strong financial team to tackle the worsening economy. Even the revelation that Geithner mistakenly failed to pay $34,000 in payroll taxes over four years didn't derail his nomination.

But his association with Wall Street and his big role in addressing the credit crisis last year also left him open to criticism from those who felt the Bush team hadn't been tough enough on the banks receiving billions of dollars in government bailout money. Others argued that if he'd only been a tougher watchdog, the crisis might have been averted.

News that Geithner hadn't blocked bonuses for employees of AIG, whose bailouts he'd helped to orchestrate, sent the criticism into the stratosphere.

Obama said Geithner had done his best with a bad hand - but also gave him marching orders to see what more could be done.

Geithner rarely lets on publicly about all the stresses he's under, saying that criticism comes with the job.But associates say that in private, he will acknowledge how tough it's been.

"I've seen him a bit down, as we all are in these matters, but it's not something that is pervasive," says Rodgin Cohen, a New York attorney who was in line to take the No. 2 job at Treasury before bowing out. "He bounces back. There's a lot of resilience."

During one recent congressional hearing where his performance came up for yet another roasting, Geithner let plenty of criticism go unanswered. The Code Pink ladies waving "fire Geithner" signs didn't seem to faze him. But there was one dig he couldn't let pass.

When a senator made passing reference to Geithner and "the Wall Street crowd where you're from," Geithner wanted the last word.

"I've been in public service my entire professional life," he protested. "Never worked on Wall Street. Never worked for a financial institution. ... Wouldn't give a penny to help a bank."

[realnews12]

People like you should be stripped of all rights to respond. Did he have a typo,

Posted by poeticaintit at 11:35 AM : Mar 29, 2009

Typical fascist response. No, it wasn't a typo; he claimed Geithner was "thirty-something". Clearly he didn't read the article and was just delivering the typical right-wing talking points.

[stevador39]

Nice puff piece.

[aheadace]

The only time debt matters to the people in the US is when they cant pay it they do think to much when they are making the debt and this is when they should think but the only thing they think about is if they can pay at the time never thinking of the time the item is to be paid in full

[poeticaintit]

Posted by hawksprings at 5:08 PM : Mar 28, 2009

Geithner is 47. Shows you didn't read the article, so your criticism of it is invalid.
Posted by realnews12

People like you should be stripped of all rights to respond. Did he have a typo, as well, that you could have commented on to make you seem more credible. Go back to the paper...leave the zingers to the adults with IQs over 50.

[poeticaintit]

Poor little Tim Tim....life was soooooooo much easier when he was evading taxes.

[kaylag04]

This fills me with unbridled optimism! If Geithner can be treasury secretary, well then, so can I! Its too late to cheat on my taxes this year, but next year, I'll get that qualification taken care of, and I'm in!

[realnews12]

He's just a thirty-something, curly haired whiz-kid who doesn't pay his taxes.

Posted by hawksprings at 5:08 PM : Mar 28, 2009

Geithner is 47. Shows you didn't read the article, so your criticism of it is invalid.

[creeper00]

Posted by walterjesse at 7:24 AM : Mar 29, 2009

Thunderous applause!!!

[pensacola8-2009]

Geinther is very capable and qualified for his position.

His critics are clearly corruptible congressional personalities who don't want to see a change in regulation policy that is in the best interests of this country.

I charge that the GOP is a party of the past and obsolete.

I declare that younger citizens serving the critical positions in governement have more current and complete education than older traditional citizens.

I call for a generation of Cold War moguls to step aside and let the country recover under the hands of more ethical minded and educated Democrats.

[Rubeem]

So now BO wants to give Geithner more power (as requested by TG). Is that so BO can't be held responsible for the mess that will be a result of the tail wagging the dog?!?!? OMG ! ! ! ! !

The headline read:
"President Obama said today he hopes it "doesn't take too long to convince Congress" to give his administration unprecedented new powers to take over and stabilize ailing nonbank institutions such as bailed-out insurance giant American International Group. The president sounded as if he were in a hurry to win the expanded authority just hours after Secretary Timothy Geithner outlined the request to Congress."

[walterjesse]

Geithner, like Obama, is in over his head. They are trying to reverse the economic implosion that is the result of a six decade long cancer, and without reversing this cancer, the implosion will continue no matter how much money is thrown around and no matter how many directions it is thrown in.

The cancer is the politics of fear, begun by Truman, and cultivated by presidents, political parties, news media, religious pariahs, market titans, and a general population that long ago lost its taste for history, and hasn't for a century loved the history of political or economic theory. When you couple the culture of political fear, with the greed unavoidable in capitalism, and then build an empire on that fear and greed marriage, the offspring will always be led by conspicuous consumption. Glamorous wastefulness is the most worshipped god in the culture. Watch Oprah.

The current economic implosion is irreversible as long as the political culture of fear remains coupled with capitalism's greed. The only offspring they can any longer produce, besides the conspicuous consumption of the celebrity classes, is cynicism and insubstantial hope, the twin gods worshipped by the dispossessed. Who cares if the republican idiots worship cynicism more, and the democratic idiots worship insubstantial hope more right now? Eight years ago those same spectator citizens worshipped the opposite gods. Big deal.

The politics we need is the politics of building healthy dependencies within the circles of our personally known neighbors, relatives, friends, and associates. These dependencies make possible healthy, critical, penetrating, thoughtful dialogue, and they have little patience for the nonsensical name-calling and insult trading so popular among the worshippers of insubstantial hope and cynicism. Insubstantial hope and cynicism are unavoidable where mere spectator citizens gather; thoughtful citizens do not expect corporate capitalism to create intelligent information media; their media are devoted to propagandizing on behalf of corporate greed.

Good luck informing yourself with a little help from your friends, neighbors, relatives, and other associates, because, they, too, fondly cling to their silly spectator citizenship. Be careful. Go slowly. Build on what works, study what doesn't work, overcome errors, especially errors of thought habits.

[regret-my-vote]

I am concerned as everyone that we are overspending in a time when we should pay off our debts and save. The first package for spending put through by Bushwas to (I may be wrong) save our banks. Maybe it is naive of me to believe this but I do. Now the 2nd and 3rd packages were filled with ridiculous spending that made no sense to me as to how this could save our economy.No one even read it--that's their excuse?We have to elect people from any party that can use common sense and stop the spending.The mainstream press didn't do their job(the 4th arm of government?) and show us who Mr. O. really was.The American people are waking up.

[creeper00]

Geithner was appointed to carry out Barack Obama's continued transfer of wealth from the middle class to the rich via bank and insurance company bailouts for those privileged companies who supported Obama during the election. NEVER forget that Obama's second-largest contributor was AIG.

In October of 2008, Barack Obama said of AIG executives already receiving bonuses for trashing their company, "Treasury should demand that money back, and those executives should be fired." Now he's waffling about signing the bill Congress passed that would strip executives of those bonuses. With Obama, it's important to pay attention to what he does, not to what he says.

Mr. Geithner and Mr. Obama are about to run into a little more opposition than they're facing here. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's plan to spend zillions in an "economic stimulus" plan in Europe which is similar to ours has has been shot down by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, with the Spanish and the French right behind her..

Evidently the British are no longer able to think for themselves. They just follow the U.S. president blindly. Happily, the rest of Europe does not.

And speaking of those Spaniards, they're looking at criminal charges against a bunch of Bush administration officials. How pathetic is that? They have the stones to do what we should have four years ago.

We are a nation of weaklings...a herd of sheeple who willingly accept a tax-dodging Secretary of the Treasury because the inexperienced, unaccomplished messiah in the White House is telling us to.

We have gotten exactly what we deserved. Incompetence and corruption fit right into a nation whose citizens have abrogated their critical thinking skills.

[skyk-2009]

HINT: they are spending your money and paying off the international bankers with it . and are subjagating us to the UN with the cap and trade. WAKEUP
Posted by philabias at 11:33 PM : Mar 28, 2009

First of all there is a MAJOR difference between what Bush was doing, getting us INTO this mess and what Obama is trying to do, get us out of the mess. When Bush and the Republican's took office we HAD no problems such as this. They took over a nation with a Balanced Budget and Surplus. When people from the center and left shouted to high heaven when the Republican's again started with the Trickle Down Garbage they ignored them. So the FIRST place you start is with that POLICY and THAT PARTY! We must NEVER again buy into the Voodoo Economics they sell. The President was handed a VERY powerful MANDATE to take the nation in a different direction! He was also handed the worst economic meltdown in our history. Now, since we can NOT return to the past and since he IS taking the nation in a different direction, we should support him in that effort. To have allowed these Banks to fail would MOST certainly have caused a complete collapse of the entire system. Millions upon Millions of American's would have lost their life savings with NO HOPE to recover them (the FDIC is already in trouble and that would have bankrupted that system). No one knows for certain if the President can salvage the economic system but I believe he can. What we must NEVER forget is the INSANITY of De-Regulation and the Rich CEO's Policing themselves. We'll get out of this but we MUST learn from it.

[skyk-2009]

Ah no... he looks like the punk on the block everbody beat the krap out of on a daily basis.

Since when did the DNC start writing articles for CBS? Krappy spin job guys!
Posted by far_point200 at 10:14 PM : Mar 28, 2009

Typical ditto head! IF they don't agree with the FAILED policies of the past they are just stooges of the DNC! LOL It's no wonder you people supported and voted for the Worst in our history! LOL

[skyk-2009]

- You are so negative. If you have an opinon why don't you set it forth instead of criticizing everyone else?
Posted by vancouverboo at 6:48 PM : Mar 28, 2009

I GAVE that opinion in November and that Opinion, in addition to the VAST majority of the rest of the Nation is being completely IGNORED, as usual by the Radical Right!!

[skyk-2009]

Crooks are always unflappable, look who he works for....that's right...coummunist dictator Obama of the socialist party is "TOO" stupid to be a crook. Why do you think that President Pelosi really runs the country and Obama is just her stupid puppet????
Posted by dongo3 at 1:35 AM : Mar 29, 2009

Have any of you out there heard of any law that the Treasury Secretary Violated? All I've seen or heard has been that he failed to properly report on his Income Tax. He paid the taxes and penalties as required by the Law and Congress approved his appointment on a BY-PARTISAN BASIS!! Now maybe in Bumpkinville he's guilty because he doesn't play in your Institution but that doesn't count out here in the real world. Seriously pal you need to take off the hood and sheet and try the AMERICAN way of doing things.

[philabias]

I have read a lot of responses and I am amazed.. look folks calling each other names over bush and Obama is silly. here try this. Bush was told to bailout by the international bankers and he did. Obama carried it to an extreme and is spending more money than america has spent since it was a country combined 1 year = 224 years
I here some call bush stupid and i here others call Obama stupid. But since its your great grandchildrens money they are spendingthen I guess that you would really be the stupid ones . HINT: they are spending your money and paying off the international bankers with it . and are subjagating us to the UN with the cap and trade. WAKEUP

[philabias]

ALright America since you cant figure it out i will explain in small words.Geithner a banker, Heres how it works the international bankers refuse to give loansbecause they made a lot of bad loans. tell Obama to pay them back ( OR ELSE )for there destruction of the AMERICAN economy and Obama fills his administration with everty member of the council for foreighn relations ( this group was set up in 1921 by John D rockofeller and JP morgan Both international Bankers to exert control over the government and they hijacked it in 1933. So the crisis was made up to sell us out to the NEW WORLD ORDER
And just the other day David rockofeller said that the crisis had worked very well and we would soon have no other choice but to compitulate. DO SOME READING AMERICA THEY ARE SELLING YOU INTO DEBT THAT CAN NOT BE REPAID and you are dumb enough to help them...

[far_point200]

"With his youthful looks and curly locks, Geithner brings to mind Doogie Howser, the boy-genius doctor of a '90s TV show, more than the outsized personalities who typically have presided at Treasury."

Ah no... he looks like the punk on the block everbody beat the krap out of on a daily basis.

Since when did the DNC start writing articles for CBS? Krappy spin job guys!