If there were ever a career civil servant’s Hall of Fame, Timothy F. Geithner would no doubt be an inductee.
The president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Geithner, 46, played a key role in the resolution of the Bear Stearns crisis on Wall Street.
Timothy F. Geithner
All civil servants can look at Geithner’s resume and realize that if they work hard, they, too, can rule at least part of the world.
At the same time, these civil servants can examine Geithner’s biography and realize that it also helps to make a few good friends along the way to power.
An apprenticeship with Henry Kissinger doesn’t hurt. Be sure, too, to get to know a few secretaries of the Treasury and a few Wall Street CEOs.
As a young man, Geithner spent many years living abroad, primarily in Japan and India, moving around because his father was a program officer with the Ford Foundation.
He graduated from Dartmouth College and John Hopkins University with an emphasis in international studies rather than economics.
“Since college, he has pretty much gone straight up the ladder,” Gary Weiss writes in Portfolio. “No detours, no backpacking around Europe, no internship fetching coffee.”
Geithner’s first job was with Kissinger Associates, where he worked with the former secretary of state.
From there, he went to the U.S. Treasury Department, where he rose to become an aide to Lawrence Summers and Robert Rubin, treasury secretaries under Bill Clinton.
He assisted these leaders in putting together bailouts, not of companies but of nations, including Mexico and Indonesia.
During the late 1990s, Alan Greenspan, then the chairman of the Federal Reserve, also noticed Geithner.
“That whole period was one long crisis,” Greenspan told Portfolio. “(Geithner showed) a general understanding of the nature of what the problems were and what was required to right the system.”
Geithner’s circle of advisers and mentors was expanded in 2003 when he became head of the New York Fed, the most powerful of the government’s 12 regional banks.
When Bear Stearns, an investment bank, began to bleed money earlier this year as a result of the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage industry, the New York Fed took on damage-control duties.
Geithner served as the point man in the talks that led to the Federal Reserve’s loan of $29 billion to assist J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. in its buyout of the assets of Bear Sterns.
Whether or not the Fed did the right thing is reflected in the title of Weiss’ profile of Geithner, “The Man Who Saved (or Got Suckered by) Wall Street.”
That profile and profiles in other publications depict Geithner as extraordinary well-connected.
His informal group of advisers includes E. Gerald Corrigan, a managing director of Goldman Sachs and a former New York Fed president; Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr.; John Thain, the CEO of Merrill Lynch; Paul A. Volcker, the former Fed chairman; and Peter G. Peterson, the former U.S. secretary of commerce.
James “Jamie” L. Dimon, the CEO and chairman of J.P. Morgan Chase, is a Geithner ally and a member of the board of the New York Fed.
This connection has raised some eyebrows, for it meant that in solving the Bear Stearns mess Geithner approved a $29 billion loan to a company run by a member of his board.
But Geithner argued that J.P. Morgan met the Fed’s criteria, as it was “a sound institution” that could pay back the money. Bear Stearns did not meet this test.
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12 Comments
#1. Jared 11.21.2008
interesting..
#2. Elliott 11.21.2008
Please by all means, start looking over the shoulder of Sec. Paulson now. The first order for the new cabinet of President Obama will be to bring credibility back to the positions. Good luck to him and all of the new cabinet appointments. It would appear that our fates are in their hands.
#3. Maureen 11.22.2008
One of Geithner’s mentors is Henry Paulson. Geithner is being appointed (by the NWO NOT OBAMA!) to keep the lid on all that his criminal Secretaries of the Treasuries and Heads of the Federal Reserve (Greenspan and Bernanke) have been up to …………..namely pulling off the biggest heist in US history!
Talk about an economic 911! Do these guys really think the American people are that stupid/
To hell with Geithner and his Global banking system that he wrote about this past June after attending the Bilderberg Group in Chantilly, Va. on June 5 - 8…………….END THE FED! GET THESE DAMN PARASITES OF OUR BACKS!
#4. Turkish 11.22.2008
Does anyone think that this administration is going to be filled with Jews whereas the whole country has only about 6 million of them? Summers, Ehmanuel, Geithner… There was even talk of Ms. Pritzker joining the crowd. What the heck is going on? Talk about underrepresentation if you’re in majority in this country. I wouldn’t allow this to happen in my own country…
Turkish
#5. Wayne 11.25.2008
Once a Bilderburger allways a Bilderburger. But also a close associate to Henry Kissinger ,one of the main drivers behind the Bilderburger plot. The second phase is about to begin. I hope that the World wakes up to what is going on right now, infact Hitler will look Like as Saint compared to what these people have planned.
This is another member of Obama,s team with connections to the Bildeburger Group,
which also includes Hillary Clinton . The end list of personnal choosen will look just like the attendance list of the last Bilderburger Group in Chantilly Va
#6. Amit 02.11.2009
Timothy Geithner is intimately related to Obama through his father’s oversight of Obama’s mother’s microfinance program in Indonesia.The more things change, the more things change. I have been unable to find anything that Geithner has written that warrants his appointment as Secretary of Treasury. Without computers, he has mediocre analytical skills. His fall should be swift.
#7. Jonathan 04.03.2009
Ex Chairman Greenspan of Federal Reserve is a Jew. Now Ben Bernanke is a Jew. Vice Chairman Donal Kohn is a Jew. Now Tim Geithner in Treasury is a Jew. Whats wrong with white christians and others in the States? Are they stupid or brainwashed? God bless America!
#8. Laurie Bennett 04.04.2009
Jonathan, what exactly is your point? That the United States is a Christian country?
#9. Joey 06.20.2009
One might reasonably think Jonathan’s point is that he doesn’t like Jews. A more important point that may be missed is that leadership of the Fed appears to lack diversity.
On the other hand, as the contrast between Geithner and Greenspan show, two people from the same religious background can still demonstrate immense differences in leadership and management abilities. Geithner’s raison d’etre appears to be to organize fire sales of US industries and institutions, with the US Gov’t as the buyer. You can’t keep up fire sales without fires, and Geithner is just one of the members of the brigade.
#10. william Ray 01.11.2010
Dont u all violate Logan Act
#11. SPO_Nawj Da P.O.W. 01.26.2010
I think I can help clear up Jonathan’s statement with the book of Revelation Chapter2 Verse 9-10 I know your tribulation and poverty but you are rich and the blasphemy by those who say they themselves are Jews, and yet they are not but are synagogue of satan. 10. Do not be afaid of the things you are about to suffer, Look! The Devil will keep on throwing some of you into prison that you will be fully put to the test, and that you may have tribulation ten days. Prove yourself faithful even to death. And I will give you the crown of life. The world has been operating under Hebrew Laws of Commerce for over 6000 years, it is nothing new false Jews have used factional reserve banking systems to subdue for centuries
#12. Dr F J Trapani 07.18.2011
Aside from the fact that Timothy Geithner’s father and Obama’s mother were “friends”, what gives him the qualifications to be in one of the most important positions concerning our economy. Although some remark how exceptional he is in finance, I see no real experience for him to be sitting in that very important job. But he does have a slew of high powered friends.
The one thing that I did read was “he has neither commercial banking experience nor a Ph.D. in economics?”
I have also read that because of their parents’ relationship, they (he and Obama) were longtime perhaps even childhood friends.
But with our economic situation n such dire straits, can we afford to have a man in that position who really is unqualified?
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