Banking Reform: Who Is In Charge?

The key question when looking at the banking mess and where we go from here is "who is in charge?" We know the pols and business "leaders" who got us into this mess. Are we going to allow these same people to dictate the terms of deals going forward? Are we going to continue to let the foxes guard the henhouse?

I point you to two writings on this issue, neither positive for Obama. The first is by Josh Marshall over at TPM. The second is by Paul Krugman at the New York Times.

I will offer a counterpoint writing, however, in the form of a reader response on TPM. Take it for what you will; quoted in part.

With regards to Geithner, I have been thinking a lot about this whole AIG mess and one of the things I keep coming back to is that Geithner is basically a one man band right now because neither the Dep Secy nor key Asst Secy positions at Treasury have been filled. That is not highly unusual at this point in an Admin and most Secys just struggle along until they can fill the positions. The problem Geithner has is he is dealing with multiple crises while not having a core team in place. At my day job I run large projects for my company and when you get stretched for time and resources you end up prioritizing what seems most important. 90+% of the time you get it right but when you don't it is usually bad. The Obama Admin will never say this publicly but I would not be surprised if what happened here is that Geithner saw the AIG bonuses as a secondary issue and prioritized the bank stress tests, TARP money, the auto bailout, etc. Having no key team members in place he didn't delegate it to the staff in his office or to the careers who are filling in temporarily while the subcabinet positions are confirmed. And now you have a mess.

I know a lot of people are calling for Geithner's head but I think you have to give him a chance to get staffed up and see what he can do. If he is still struggling 9 mos from now, get rid of him.

20 March 2009