Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Closing Tim   [Mark Steyn]

I understand the advantage to President Obama of having Toxic Tim in place as designated fall guy for a month or two hence, but in the meantime maybe they could keep him duct-taped to a chair in the basement. From the Daily Telegraph:

US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner shocked global markets by revealing that Washington is "quite open" to Chinese proposals for the gradual development of a global reserve currency run by the International Monetary Fund.

The dollar plunged instantly against the euro, yen, and sterling as the comments flashed across trading screens. David Bloom, currency chief at HSBC, said the apparent policy shift amounts to an earthquake in geo-finance.

"The mere fact that the US Treasury Secretary is even entertaining thoughts that the dollar may cease being the anchor of the global monetary system has caused consternation," he said.

Mr Geithner later qualified his remarks . . .

You don't say. As the Wall Street Journal comments:

Mr. Geithner is learning on the job, and yesterday's lesson is that it isn't smart to fool with currency markets when you are already tempting fate with a gigantic U.S. reflation.

I was interested in Veronique de Rugy's post below about Paul Keating's memories of Timmy's Indonesian adventure. I haven't been a fan of Mr. Keating since he patted the Queen's bottom in the early Nineties, but it was an interesting glimpse of Geithner's crisis-management technique.

By the way, why is the President having such a tough time staffing the Treasury? Just asking, but recruitment doesn't seem to be exactly zipping along. Bloomberg reports:

Geithner has been the only confirmed senior official at the Treasury since he took office in January. The White House yesterday nominated former Clinton official Lael Brainard as Treasury undersecretary for international affairs after at least one other candidate for the job removed herself from contention. 

03/25 10:20 PMShare