A comment so ridiculous that it makes your head explode!

In light of that, the president's pledge to "save" jobs is looking fuzzier by the day. At a Senate hearing last week, Geithner hemmed and hawed when he was asked the simple question, "What's a saved job?"

"That's a loss avoided, or a rise in unemployment avoided, by getting growth back on track," Geithner answered. But when he was asked just how we will know when a job loss was prevented from happening, Geithner could only say that we'll know when the president tells us.

Yes, he really did say that!!

Geithner-Obama Economics: A Joke That's Not Funny
By Byron York

Chief Political Correspondent 3/13/09

from The DC Examiner

When they start making jokes about you, it's hard to recover. And that's what is happening now to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

It's not just "Saturday Night Live" poking fun at him -- you saw the skit depicting a Geithner so clueless that he offered a huge reward to anyone who called his hotline, 1-800-IDEAS, with a plan to get us out of the financial crisis. Beyond the TV shows, Geithner, who was confirmed despite having to pay $48,000 in back taxes and interest, is also the target of suppressed snickers on Capitol Hill whenever the subject turns to the IRS. And now, he is widely thought to be not up to the job.

The fundamental problem, of course, is that Geithner hasn't come up with a financial rescue plan. There is nearly unanimous agreement among economists and policymakers that the single most important thing the Secretary of the Treasury should do now is develop a plan to deal with the "toxic assets" that threaten the survival of financial institutions. But Geithner, who has been acutely aware of this problem for months, doesn't have such a plan. If he had, the comedians wouldn't be talking about 1-800-IDEAS.

The situation has gotten so bad that Geithner is the subject of private buyer's remorse from some of the very politicians who supported him. A number of senators voted to confirm Geithner, even with tax problems they deemed disqualifying, because they believed the financial crisis required immediate action. Now, with little happening, their feeling is: We put aside some very troubling concerns for this?

"I'm fairly confident that if the vote on the nomination were held today, he would not be confirmed," a top Senate aide told me recently. "The thing that saved him -- even though people with lesser problems were not saved -- was that he was the only one who could do the job, and he was seen as the wunderkind who would come in and save the day."

But as troublesome as Geithner's performance has been, focusing too much on him obscures the bigger, more important problem: Barack Obama doesn't seem to know what to do next when it comes to the economy.

Signs of confusion are all around. First, the president hasn't troubled himself to hire a team to work alongside Geithner at Treasury. There are normally eighteen high-ranking Department officials who have to be confirmed by the Senate, and Obama has nominated three -- and none of them have even had hearings yet. "Geithner isn't getting any support from the White House," another clued-in GOP aide told me. "No one man can do this job. Where is everyone who is supposed to be helping?"

Second, the administration is giving off signs of uncertainty about its own analysis of the crisis. The White House knows its forecasts of growth next year -- when the administration predicts the economy will magically snap out of deep recession and resume robust growth -- are too rosy. But they know they can't rein in those forecasts, bring them more in line with the expert consensus, without blowing the president's big-spending budget out of the water. So they stick to a less and less credible forecast.

Third, the White House even seems unsure of its much-touted $787 billion stimulus package. Do you remember how often President Obama said his plan will "create or save" four million jobs? Well, a group of economists sympathetic to Capitol Hill Democrats reportedly says the number might be significantly lower -- maybe 2.5 million jobs.

In light of that, the president's pledge to "save" jobs is looking fuzzier by the day. At a Senate hearing last week, Geithner hemmed and hawed when he was asked the simple question, "What's a saved job?"

"That's a loss avoided, or a rise in unemployment avoided, by getting growth back on track," Geithner answered. But when he was asked just how we will know when a job loss was prevented from happening, Geithner could only say that we'll know when the president tells us.

Geithner's answer seemed almost sheepish, as if he knew -- and he knew the senators knew -- that the administration is making it all up as it goes along. He might just as well have asked us to call 1-800-IDEAS.

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Another one! - Third Top Treasury Pick Withdraws From Consideration

This news came out after the close of the stock market today. Let's see how the market reacts tomorrow. I predict a drop of about 200 points. The market is very nervous about the Obama Administration and their Treasury Department, or the lack thereof.
Rees

from ABC News
by George Stephanopoulos (Obama lap dog)
March 12, 2009 2:31 PM

Democratic sources say that H. Rodgin Cohen, a partner in the New York law firm Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, and the leading candidate for Deputy Treasury Secretary, has withdrawn from consideration.

It's the third withdrawal of a top Treasury Department staff pick in less than a week. I reported last week that Cohen was likely to be officially nominated for the Deputy Treasury Secretary position.

Cohen has been a counsel to just about every major player on Wall Street, which perhaps complicated his nomination.

Now, the nomination is off.

Democratic sources said that an issue arose in the final stages of the vetting process.
Click to go to the article

Dear President Obama: A crisis that YOU'RE making worse is a "time of great opportunity?"

Saturday, March 7, 2009
from the blogspot Dear President Obama

Mr. President, your utter cluelessness never ceases to amaze.

We're in a "crisis," all right, and you're doing your damnedest to take every opportunity for advantage from the idiots that don't see you as you truly are, to remake America in your socialist image.

You ignorantly view the stock market as some kind of political poll; you're doing everything you can to rob those of us who've turned themselves into something out of nothing; you intend to slash Defense spending in the middle of a war; you're taking deliberate steps to cost millions of Americans their retirement and you're burying us under an entire mountain range of debt, all under the guise of your income redistribution plans.
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The Dow and Obama - He Now Owns It!

from The Provocateur blogspot
Friday, March 6, 2009

The Politics and Policy of the Dow and President Obama
The numbers are stunning. The Dow has dropped 31% since election day and 20% since the inauguration. Many political opponents and some market observers have pointed the finger for this drop directly at President Obama. The President's supporters counter that much of the move has to do with short term market dynamics and an economic downturn he inherited. So far, both the President and his supporters have ignored these short term trends.

So far, the President has cover. After all, he has only been in office for a month and a half. Whatever the movement, it is short term. At some point though, short term will turn into medium term and into long term.

Here is what should concern everyone in the administration, and in the investing community at large. Nothing over the next year will likely happen to change the dynamic of the market. The market has made two verdicts. It doesn't like the long term outlook of the economy. It also doesn't like the policy platform of the Obama administration. Now, defenders will quibble with the second statement, but how are we supposed to view the market tanking following every major policy initiative brought out by the administration.

Now, let's look at the landscape over the next year or so. Today, the employment numbers came out for February and the economy lost more than 600,000 jobs. Even the administration itself expects that the downturn will continue indefinitely. That means we can expect a steady stream of bad economic news for the indefinite future. At the same time, the administration will role out a plethora of new big government, quasi socialistic policies for the indefinite future.

Furthermore, President Obama has taken a very anti business tone. If he isn't demonizing big business, he is presenting policies that will punish them with massive new regulations and taxes. Such a tone is not going to make the Dow move in the right direction anytime soon.

So, well have to ask. Are we really to believe that as we learn more about the mortgage bailout, the stimulus, TARP II, cap and trade, quasi bank nationalization, the budget, etc. that suddenly the markets will warm to them? Furthermore, it is clear that the market has lost all faith in Obama's Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. So, yes, it's early, but why should anyone believe that anything will change anytime soon?

So, let's add up the math. If the market has dropped nearly thirty percent in five months due to a combination of a deteriorating economy and policies it rejects, what do you think will happen if the exact same thing happens for at least another year? At this pace, we may be at 5000 by the end of the year if not sooner. That would of course be devastating to the economy and all investors. It would also be devastating to Obama politically. Folks often point to his high approvals to point out that things like this are irrelevant. That is of course misleading. All presidents have high approvals immediately following inauguration. What do you think Obama's approval will be at the end of the year if it is Dow 5000?

The president and his supporters had better start to pay a lot more attention to the Dow Jones. That's because eventually the fate of the Dow and the president are one and the same. Never has there been a successful presidency, in modern times at least, with a weak Dow. The president and his supporters can continue their political posturing. They can continue to blame the falling Dow on his predecessor. For a while, it may work, but at some point, the Dow had better go up. If the president thinks that a current policy course will make that happen anytime soon, he is deluding himself.

The president has one last chance to change this all around. If he can present some sort of a plan to stabilize the banking system, the markets can and will recover. If he can present some sort of a plan that will once and for all deal with all the toxic assets on the balance sheets of the banks, the markets can and will recover. We can all hold out hope that this will happen, but so far there is no indication that it will.
Posted by mike volpe at 2:05 PM
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