Contra Geithner

Joe Weisenthal makes the case against Geithner:

We know that not everyone would’ve made the same decision here. We’ve worked with people in our professional life, who everytime they encountered something legally or ethically murky opted to make the conservative choice that wasn’t immediately beneficial to them. They do exist, believe it or not. We suspect a guy like Warren Buffett would’ve asked for a professional opinion on the tax issue, were he in that same position.
Again, it’s not that Geithner is so bad, it’s just that his mindset is apparently similar to the people who got us here. Substitute “Moody’s” for “TurboTax” and it should be be obvious.
It’s moot at this point. The speed of the banking crisis means the full Senate will sign off on today’s finance committee vote. But we will soon have a Treasury Secretary who was basically of the same mindset as everyone else, rather than a real clean break from the failed, convenient thinking of the past.

Geithner said he simply made a mistake on his taxes and apologized. Well, the apology is good but it misses the point, the mistake is the issue. Calling it one doesn’t diminish the significance. The Secretary of the Treasury should know how to do his taxes without making obvious, boneheaded mistakes.
Larry Ribstein has more.

Posted by on January 23rd, 2009 at 12:38 pm


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