Friday, May 8, 2009
Time Calls Geithner a "Con Man" and the Stress Tests a "Confidence Game"
Time Magazine assesses Geithner and the stress tests in a reasonably honest article entitled "Stress Tested: Has Geithner's Bank Confidence Game Worked?".
A "confidence game" is, of course, just the formal name for a con job.
Time writes:
In a remarkable bit of salesmanship, Geithner has managed to package [the negative realities regarding the banks' health] as positive...
Facts are important too, and some think Geithner and the government are fudging them. Nouriel Roubini, the hard-headed pessimist who foresaw the financial crisis, wrote Tuesday in the Wall Street Journal that the overall positive message of the stress tests "would be good news if it were credible," but it's not...Roubini is not alone in questioning whether the government used appropriately pessimistic assumptions in conducting the stress tests, especially as the financial sector faces a potential flood of commercial real estate losses that could mirror the residential market's recent woes.
Still, even if the numbers are based more on positive thinking than cold hard facts, it's tough not to be impressed by what Geithner and company have accomplished. In addition to the boost in public confidence, they've apparently figured out how to get the banks to support Geithner's other iffy program, the one designed to rid banks of toxic assets.[GW's Comment: This is the program where the banks are buying each others' toxic assets so they can dump the tab on the American taxpayer]
All of which goes to show that whatever his faults, Tim Geithner knows how to game America's confidence in the banking system. But does that mean the stress tests themselves are one big confidence game? Perhaps. The playwright David Mamet said such scams get their name not from the confidence the victim places in the con man, but the trust the con man pretends to place in the victim to elicit trust in return. By that standard, Geithner may be the most effective con man around, for better and for worse.
13 comments:
→ Thank you for contributing to the conversation by commenting. We try to read all of the comments (but don't always have the time).
→ If you write a long comment, please use paragraph breaks. Otherwise, no one will read it. Many people still won't read it, so shorter is usually better (but it's your choice).
→ The following types of comments will be deleted if we happen to see them:
-- Comments that criticize any class of people as a whole, especially when based on an attribute they don't have control over
-- Comments that explicitly call for violence
→ Because we do not read all of the comments, I am not responsible for any unlawful or distasteful comments.
Posts
It never ceases to amaze me how the same Asken-nazi Zionist Jews keep being shuffled around DC, Wallstreet, Federal Reserve, the banking cartel, always in position to swindle Americans. If you recall, Dov Zakheim was the comptroller at the Pentagon when $2.3 trillion dollars went missing. When are Americans going to wake up to the fact Israel is raping us.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous.. Loony Alert. Can't see what your comment has to do with the article?
ReplyDeleteComments like this hurt the credibility of this site
ReplyDeletegreat pun -- asken nazi
ReplyDeleteHello, Dominique - Gatekeeper alert! Although the comments from Anonymous are a bit coarse and not directly in response to the article, they make a logical connection and one worth pondering by the American people; what happened to the 2.3 trillion that 'got misplaced' at the Pentagon while Dov Zakheim was Comtroller and is Mr. Geithner now presiding over the same lack of accountability, boardering on theft?
ReplyDeletewith your discriminatory remark you are just as bad as them.
ReplyDeleteThere is a solution to all of this, but then we have to face reality as it is. First we have to identify the root cause of the problems we are in, which is usury and credit. Usury is the charging of interest on money. Credit is the creation of money out of nothing.
ReplyDeleteThe charging of interest is the way to slavery. This is because people may be hoarding money for a rainy day. When more people do this simultaneously, money is removed from circulation, weakening the economy. When this happens, even more people will start hoarding money, because they expect times getting worse. This is the beginning of an economic crisis. Many people will lose their income, and if they do not have money, they must borrow money against interest for unavoidable expenses such as food. As a result, the situation becomes even worse.
Credit and interest on money make it possible for an economy to grow above potential during a boom phase. In the boom phase investors add leverage using credit which further intensifies the boom, creating shortages of materials and labour resulting in rising prices. Interest on money entices banks to lend money to leveraged investors during the boom phase. Credit makes it possible to create money out of thin air, which further enables the banks to fuel the boom. When the cycle turns into bust, investors start to deleverage, which further intensifies the bust, creating surplusses of materials and labour resulting in falling prices. What most economists do not see, is that credit and interest on money are the root causes of economic booms and busts.
It is possible to achieve a much greater prosperity, with maximum capital growth without inflation, large debts, economic crises, unproductive government intervention and the unproductive part of the financial sector. Natural selection will ultimately determine the most efficient economic system, despite the political power structures that still exist at this moment. The investigation of alternatives and dissemination of knowledge will accelerate this process, but the ultimate outcome will not change. The most efficient monetary system is based on money with a hoarding fee combined with banning of credit and the charging of interest on money.
The theory is described here:
http://www.naturalmoney.org/short.html
http://www.naturalmoney.org/full-theory.html
This is not a joke because famous economists and scientists did see this too:
http://www.naturalmoney.org/gift.html
Also there is a conversion plan to the new system and a plan to build a sustainable future using this system:
http://www.naturalmoney.org/conversionplan.html
http://www.naturalmoney.org/buildfuture.html
I hope you like it. You do not have to agree with all of it to find it interesting.
Bart klein Ikink
The same people ARE being "shuffled around DC", keeping the Con Game going. America DOES support Israel (and it's massacre of her neighbors) - while the rest of the world condemns it. WAKE UP!
ReplyDeleteThe forces that gave Mr Geithner his job are also the forces that are telling him what to do. Anyone who thinks he is the driving force behind the current strategies is badly informed. No matter how bright he is, the mess he has been handed is akin to trying to chisel a granite slab with a broken toothpick. You only have to look at the insecure body language he conveys to understand that his personal honesty is at odds with his public duties.
ReplyDeleteIt's more than just Israel/Zionists (although the # of them is disproportionately large).
ReplyDeleteNarcissists and psychopaths buddy up and collectively pillage.
just maybe a situation has to come to extremes in order to be recognized as to what it is and set in place a sound reaction
ReplyDeletegeithner is the puppet. Summers is the puppet master with support from Rubin.
ReplyDeleteEat, drink, be merry, make friends with a farmer and buy some Silver !!!1
ReplyDelete