It's All About Change......Right?

The President-Elect ran and won his election on the idea that things are going to CHANGE. You remember right? "We cant have the same old policies" and "Are you better off then you were 8 years ago?" Thats good politics for sure. Does it work in reality though? Theres been a few major announcements for the new administration. At the G-20 country economic summit, President-Elect Obama sent Madeline Albright to listen. Um shes 80 years old. Served in Washington for awhile. Thats change? Then his Secretary of State cabinet will be filled by Senator Clinton. You've heard of her right? Yeah thats more change.  But the real "change" that the markets LOVED was Obama's choice of Treasury Secretary.....Tim Geithner.

Now Mr. Geithner has run the NY Fed for a while. As a matter of fact, he's kind of at the head of the table when it comes to all the New York banks. Now sure, stories are coming out about how he TRIED to change a few things that the banks were doing but his backers said "he didnt have any authority" or "he faced some unregulated markets that he couldnt control". To which I say hogwash (and i cleaned that up). This guy was in charge of these banks for a long enough time to know what was up. And now look what we got. Oh one of his mentors? Bob Rubin. You know Bob from us talking about him right? Yeah Bob has sat at the head of the table at Citigroup for more then 10 years, eaten out of the trough for over $100mm, and how is Citi doing now? But its not Bob's fault? Whose fault is it? Mine? No I never worked there or owned their stock. Unfortunately, didnt short it either.

So I'm feeling a little bit bad for Hank Paulson these days. He's getting yelled at from all angles. Yes we smashed him and his Princeton boy Bernanke for not seeing the light in February and saying things were "ok". But has anyone asked if it was  Mr. Geithner, who was the HEAD of the NY FED and therefore head of these NY banks that have gotten crushed, that told his bosses "everything was ok" back then too? I bet you he was. Cause if he wasnt he'd be telling you via the press right now. Oh thats no change either. Good luck to us.

Comments

[Eric Salzman]

Thank you. Tell all your friends!

[Business Journal]

Nice blog dear i have really learn a lot from this blog thanks. This blog is very informative for me. I became very pleasure to read it.

[Bill]

Instead of complaining on these things, why not to try to make money on today's volatile market? Try to get insider trading information from SEC and trade on it!

[Eric Salzman]

Hmm, I can't stay off the sauce. Sold to Geithner!

[RPB]

I'll take Eric so long as he lays off the sauce.

[richie]

RPB,
I have a former boss, who shall remain nameless, but is now the vice chairman of a major bank that is down a "mere" 20% this year. He would never work for this crew in D.C. taking over in 2009. But he'd be a real good candidate. I remember him telling me that Congress is all screwed up because there is no real incentive to get things done. He always thought if you dangled some sort of carrot in front of these guys to balance budgets or not institute pork barrel legislation and quit grandstanding for soundbites, you would clean the whole thing up in about 6 months. Man, now that I think about it, he shouldnt be treasury secretary, he should speaker of the house or head of the senate. It'll never happen though. Well never say never.

[Eric Salzman]

I want to be the fukin Treasury Secretary! did you see gillian tett's (lord that name cracks me up) piece on Geithner today in ft? "He even learned how a CDO is structured!"

Wow, how about that! He learned what his fuking banks were doing to finance 75% of the economy! what a hero! And if he "learned" it certainly didn't seem to help him.

[RPB]

Richie,

Is there anyone we would like to have as a Treasury Secretary?