Missou U Economics Professor William Black explaining how Treasury Secretary Tim Geitner failed to secure even the most modest guarantees for taxpayer bailout money going to the recently insolvent investment house, CIT.
In a world where former Green Jobs Adviser Van Jones was dismissed for an off the cuff comment made against ring-wing turdblossoms, one wonders what sort of repercussions await demonstrably incompetent White House Advisers. Apparently none.
Here’s a mashup of recent Geitner commentary provided by MSNBC, and posted on the Business Insider who recently called for Geitner’s sacking.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
What interests me in this video is less the empty assuagings of a career Wall Street Insider. The MSNBC commentator does a fine job of pointing out the inconsistencies in Timmy’s lame offerings. What struck me was the incredibly subservient posture that Geitner assumes whenever he attempts to persuade. His demeanor resembles an ashamed child having naughtily snuck a few treats out of the cookie jar.
It almost seems as if a world of shady dealings and backroom handshakes desperately want to come pouring out of Secretary Timmy in a tear-filled confessional. Part of him seems to want to stop the actions of this double-talking, placating uber-bureaucrat speaking to the cameras. Part of him can remember the feeling of impotence and shame in surrendering his lunch money to the mocking schoolyard bully. Yet Secretary Timmy never stood up to these bullies. He decided to demonstrate his loyalty, his servile worth to the bullies that they might stop their beratings and beatings, and use him as a proxy, instead. Then Little Timmy could be the bully. Timmy could wriggle with glee as he stole the lunch money of a smaller classmate, knowing that he now had the backing of the bullies to do horrible things. Timmy had a knack for this, and soon began to carry out things more devious and Machiavellian than what the bullies could have ever dreamed of. Little Timmy began to take bets on which of the schoolchildren would be brutalized for money. Timmy began to sell classmates bully insurance (a far more lucrative game) and leveraged his bully friends to shakedown any kids who refused his protection. And as long as Timmy saw to the stealings of more and more lunch monies on a larger and larger scale, he would have the protection of the big bullies, and a little tiny corner of the sandbox that he could call his own. Timmy’s game got to the point where he was making lunch money on proposed future allowances and lemonade stand proceeds that weren’t even set up yet. Timmy got so good at taking the lunch money, that he managed to take lunch money that didn’t even really exist at all. The bullies seemed to like the imaginary piles of lunch money even more than the actual lunch money they used to steal themselves.
Little Timmy doesn’t particularly like having to explain himself to the pundits and panels and congresspeople. They don’t congratulate him for making friends with the bullies. They just keep asking for the lunch money back. Well Timmy knows that the lunch money is long gone. Most of the lunch money never really existed in the first place. The question askers don’t understand that. Do they expect him to return some giant pile of lunch money for real? How can he even begin to answer demands like that? So little Timmy bows his head and tries to explain how much he cares for the lunch money, how he worries about it at night, and how it’s all being used to buy lunches for very important lunchers. But in the back of his mind, Timmy wants desperately for the question time to be over, and the lunch money games to resume. Timmy wants to control it all, in a big imaginary pile. Timmy wants the whole world to work to sustain an ever-increasing, vast ocean of lunch money. He wants to dazzle the bully overlords with more lunch money than they could ever have dreamed of, so that one day they might thank Timmy for all his hard work, and say they were sorry for when they used to beat him up. Then Timmy might finally feel good about himself again. Then Little Timmy might finally play in peace.
