Geithner reassures China on dollar assets, gets laughed at

Our Treasury Secretary, not Secretary of State Clinton, is visiting China to calm Beijing's nerves about the once-mighty U.S. dollar. As of first quarter China holds a record $768 billion of U.S. Treasuries, and the Chinese are very worried about Washington's budget deficit and liberal monetary policy causing hyperinflation down the road.

After responding to a question about the security of U.S. assets, he was laughed at by the Peking University audience.

Nobody believes him, whether abroad or domestic. The reputation of the Treasury Department is on a downward spiral, and in turn, America's reputation.

President Obama has not elevated our global stature. His naivete and flawed policies have made America laughable.

Treasury Dept. should be renamed to something else

Seriously, why is there even a Treasury today? The U.S. has no treasury. America has no money! Who can fathom a debt of $63.8 trillion?!

According the Treasury's website, its mission is:

Serve the American people and strengthen national security by managing the U.S. Government's finances effectively, promoting economic growth and stability, and ensuring the safety, soundness, and security of the U.S. and international financial systems.

The Department of the Treasury's mission highlights its role as the steward of U.S. economic and financial systems, and as an influential participant in the global economy.

The Treasury Department is the executive agency responsible for promoting economic prosperity and ensuring the financial security of the United States. The Department is responsible for a wide range of activities such as advising the President on economic and financial issues, encouraging sustainable economic growth, and fostering improved governance in financial institutions. The Department of the Treasury operates and maintains systems that are critical to the nation's financial infrastructure, such as the production of coin and currency, the disbursement of payments to the American public, revenue collection, and the borrowing of funds necessary to run the federal government. The Department works with other federal agencies, foreign governments, and international financial institutions to encourage global economic growth, raise standards of living, and to the extent possible, predict and prevent economic and financial crises. The Treasury Department also performs a critical and far-reaching role in enhancing national security by implementing economic sanctions against foreign threats to the U.S., identifying and targeting the financial support networks of national security threats, and improving the safeguards of our financial systems.

Fail. Fail. Fail. Fail all around.

Curbing use of offshore havens solves nothing

In recent years more American businesses and wealthy individuals have moved their money into offshore havens and foreign banks to escape the tax consequences at home. The Obama administration sees this as a big problem -- possibly more of a "fairness" issue rather than a tax issue -- and will soon release extensive plans to curb such tax avoidance practices.

The White House clearly understands this phenomenon of an outward flow of American dollars from multinational corporations and wealthy people. But instead of understanding the root cause, it chooses to punish further this legal albeit unpopular way of keeping money by avoiding to pay American taxes.

The U.S. tax code is several inches thick and not even our Treasury Secretary can explain it. (He's not known as "Tax Cheat Timothy" for nothing.) There will always be a way to find a loophole no matter how the code is patched up. These corporations and individuals have the means to hire a team of accountants and lawyers to find a way. Trust me.

So American businesses and folks want to keep more money in their bank accounts, but the IRS takes too much. The solution? CUT TAXES! DUH. It's not to make new laws to prevent tax havens and spend money enforcing them. It's that easy. So easy that I bet the liberal Democrats in the W.H. and Congress don't even see it.

What will the President's plan accomplish? Will it raise more money for the country? Not quite. History has shown that such a plan will have a reverse effect on increasing the treasury. Only when taxes are cut there has been significant fattening of the treasury's coffers. Additionally, more taxes means less work and less competitiveness. America's auto industry has already been decimated, what's next? Will tech giants like IBM and Cisco fall next? Or will it be G.E. and Coke?

It's unfortunate, but the President is in for an unpleasant surprise, a surprise that's well-known to anyone who's studied American economic history.

Oh please, not another .gov website!

The Treasury Department announces FinancialStability.gov:

a website dedicated to bringing transparency and clarity to the immensely complex problems in the financial system and the President’s plans to address them.

If Geithner cannot explain it on TV, how can he explain it on a website? I'd rather all that money, time, and energy spent on creating this website used someplace else. Seriously, how many .gov sites do we need with this administration?!

Administration wants expanded authority to seize firms

Not wasting a good crisis, indeed! Team Obama could seek more power for the Treasury Department to seize non-bank financial companies like insurers, hedge funds, etc. Currently only banks can be seized by the government.

This is a dangerous path. What's next? Nationalization of the oil companies?

Stimulus bill allowed executive bonuses

The fury over AIG executive bonuses is now snowballing towards the White House, Congress, and all those in between who'd voted for the stimulus bill. Apparently the infamous stimulus allowed for executive bonuses that so many are ticked off about. And the man who's receiving most of the finger pointing? None other than Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), who happens to be the top recipient of AIG political contribution (then Sen. Obama is #2). Sen. Dodd is being blamed for inserting the executive compensation clause into the stimulus bill, and believe it or not, he's blaming Obama for requesting it!

Oh goodie, in-fighting among top Democrats...

Anyone with a "D" next to their written names is staying as far away from this mess as possible. Nobody wants to be near Sen. Dodd, Tim Geithner, or even President Obama these days. What AIG CEO Edward Liddy went through recently is nothing compared to what's going to happen in the Hill.

There's been calls for Geithner's resignation. I'm sure these calls are going to turn into a chorus pretty soon.

More calls for Geithner's resignation

First, it was Rep. Connie Mack (R-FL). Now Rep. Derrell Issa (R-CA) also calling for the Treasury Secretary's resignation:

“As one of the chief architects of the AIG bailout, Secretary Geithner was in a position to do what any lender of the last resort would do – negotiate concessions from AIG. Secretary Geithner either didn’t know about the bonuses, and was grossly negligent, or he did know and failed to bring this to the President’s attention. Either way, the end result has been a significant waste of taxpayer dollars and he should take immediate responsibility and resign.”

I have the feeling that there will be more...

Nominees also withdraw in second-tier positions

Poor Timothy Geithner. The Treasury Secretary is working alone, day and night, in the fight to straighten out the economy. He has no deputy secretary, no under secretaries, and no deputy under secretaries.

Annette Nazareth, the expected pick for deputy secretary, has withdrawn her name. So has Caroline Atkinson, Geithner's choice for undersecretary for international affairs.

The U.S. Treasury Department is probably one of the most stressful work places today. But could it also be that people are reluctant to work for an admitted tax cheat?

Obama auto team has no interest in saving Detroit

The Detroit News exposes:

Among the eight members named Friday to the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry and the 10 senior policy aides who will assist them in their work, two own American models. Add the Treasury Department's special adviser to the task force and the total jumps to three.

The Detroit News reviewed public records to discover what many of the task force and staff members drove, but information was not available on all of the officials, and records for some states were not complete.

At least two task force members don't own a car, and there are still two open slots on the 10-member panel that will be filled by the secretaries of labor and commerce, who have not yet been appointed.

Congress humiliated bank CEOs and asked them to sell their corporate jets. Now let's see if public scrutiny will have these task force members replace their foreign cars with Detroit ones.

Geithner taints TurboTax's reputation

Treasury Secretary-designate Tim Geithner is getting grilled by senators about his failure to pay taxes. He's admitted his neglectful wrongdoing, and at the same time caused Intuit, the maker of popular TurboTax software, to come out on the defensive.

Treasury Secretary nominee cannot explain missing taxes (now the economy is really screwed)

Obama would like Timothy Geithner to be the next Treasury Secretary, but how can he be effective if he cannot explain his failure to pay taxes? He does realize that as Treasury Secretary, he'll oversee the IRS? And we're supposed to trust this gentleman to hold our hands through the global economic crisis?

No hearing for you, Mr. Geithner!

Another wrench thrown into the mix of confirmation hearings: Obama's appointment for Treasury Secretary, Tom Geithner, is found to have past tax problems. His public hearing has been postponed to avoid further embarrassment. Although most think it's a minor infraction, some Republicans aren't likely to let this go easily.