Worst Defense of Timothy "Eddie Haskell" Geithner Ever!

I'm with The Bloodhound Gang, on Banks,
Burn Motherf%$#er, Burn!

John Talbot is suggesting that Geithner's scheme to save the banks is dependent on their ability to screw retail consumers and small business consumers:

And this is where defeat of the nomination of Elizabeth Warren becomes critical for Geithner. For Geithner's strategy to work, the banks have to find increasing sources of profitability in their business segments to balance out their annual loan loss recognition from their existing bad loans in an environment in which they continue to recognize new losses in prime residential mortgages, commercial real estate lending, sovereign debt investments, bridge loans to private equity groups, leverage buyout lending and credit card defaults.

The banks have made no secret as to where they will find this increase in cash flow. They intend to soak their small retail customers, their consumer and small business borrowers, their credit card holders and their small depositors with increased costs and fees and are continuing many of the bad mortgage practices that led to the crisis (ARM's, option pay deals, zero down payments, second mortgages, teaser rates, etc). American and Banking Market News reports this week that the rule changes in the financial reform bill may lead banks to start implementing fees that had essentially disappeared from the industry early in the new millennium, such as fees for not meeting minimum balance requirements on a checking account, or reinstituting fees for certain online banking transactions that are currently free or charging to receive a paper statement or to talk to a live teller as Bank of America's CEO has recently proposed.

Let me be clear here. Mr. Talbot does not endorse this strategy, and he supports Ms. Warren as head of the CFPB, he is explaining what he believes the calculus of the Geithner/Summers axis.

So, he is saying that in addition to actual taxpayer funded bailout, he is saying that Geithner and Summers see a back door taxpayer bailout as the only way to save the banks.

The thing is that the costs here, if Mr. Talbot is right, are enormous.

Excessive bank charges, won't just generate excess profits, they will also reduce economic growth and tax receipts, since consumer spending and small business is where growth comes from, and this is where they will be extracting their money.

I do hope that he is wrong, because for this to be their strategy means that we do have a bunch of Republicans in all ways that matter, running the White House economic policy.

My guess is rather less tinfoil hat.

I think that Geithner has never in his life thought outside of the "what is good for Wall Street" box, and that this, juxtaposed with what appears to be an antipathy towards women in the field,^* has led to yet another one of his petty and self destructive vendettas.

At least that is what I hope.

If John Talbot is correct, then these Cossacks Republicans work for the Czar, who knows what they are.

^*I do not think that Geithner, who has spent his entire professional career getting ahead by kissing up, has only come out strongly against two people that I know of, Elizabeth Warren and Sheila Bair, both of whom lack a Y chromosome.