We're All In The Dance

Gee, I guess I should be jumping for joy, ignoring the cumbersome day on the homefront experienced this day, because the Stock Market jumped 500-points.

And, all because Secretary of the Treasury Timothy "What's that, Lassie? (Woof, woof!!) Timmy Geithner's in the well?!!" Geithner announced his Public-Private Investment Scheme.

Emphasis added to "Public" and "Scheme".



About the only difference between the plan today, and the one Heistin' Hank Paulson was looking to run with last fall, is that Geithner has more hair on his head.

Tbogg, over on Firedoglake sums it up, pretty good;

Geithner isn't Michael Brown. He's Hurricane Katrina.

Reaction today (exempting the Stock Market, of course) was mixed, many still holding on to the point-of-view that this is garbage, and will do nothing, with nationalization of the diseased banks and companies inevitable, others in the middle, saying, ehh, we gotta do something, and maybe, just maybe (perhaps this is a hint, that we should be buying stock in the companies that manufacture "Lucky Rabbit Foot" charms) it will work, and a much smaller crowd openly heralding the Obama-Geithner plans as opening the skies, so the sun can shine, and the money rain down.



Evidence of that center crowd exemplified by quoting Mr. Wind, T. Boone Pickens;

My dad said a fool with a plan can beat a genius with no plan.

Paul Krugman was unwavering in his despair (and added to it with some 'rithmatic'), and gets defended by Digby, against the some in the Obama Administration, and the "noses-in-the-air" folks at MSNBC, who want to wish Krugman away to the cornfield.

Kevin Drum lays down that, perhaps, this is akin to a gauntlet we have to go through, on "The Road to Nationalization?"

Oh yes, there were a couple of reminders, one from Jane Hamsher, that Timothy "What's that, Lassie? (Woof, woof!!) Timmy Geithner's in the well?!!" Geithner is "Making Countrywide Executives Rich Again".

And, Dan Froomkin points out the "Basic questions Treasury still hasn’t answered"

Steve Clemons, on The Washington Note, points to "Simon Johnson's excellent blog, the Baseline Scenario, for "Finally, a Brilliant Idea on Toxic Assets"

And, finally, Henry Blodget, was about the only one out there, proverbially, doing the "lipstick-on-a-pig" thing, calling it like he sees it;

In short, because the plan is yet another massive, ineffective gift to banks and Wall Street. Taxpayers, of course, will take the hit.

Why does Tim Geithner keep repackaging the same trash-asset-removal plan that he has been trying to get approved since last fall?

In our opinion, because Tim Geithner formed his view of this crisis last fall, while sitting across the table from his constituents at the New York Fed: The CEOs of the big Wall Street firms. He views the crisis the same way Wall Street does--as a temporary liquidity problem--and his plans to fix it are designed with the best interests of Wall Street in mind.

If Geithner's plan to fix the banks would also fix the economy, this would be tolerable. But no smart economist we know of thinks that it will.

Something tells me that either President Obama, or Sectretary of the Treasury Timothy "What's that, Lassie? (Woof, woof!!) Timmy Geithner's in the well?!!" Geithner will turn towards each other in the coming weeks, summoning up the best spirit of Laurel and Hardy, and one will say to the other;

"Well, that's another fine mess you've gotten me into."

FEIST - La Meme Histoire - We're all in the dance