Posted 6:07 AM by steve

On Monday, Geithner announced details of his plan to let banks shed their so-called toxic assets, which, together with reports that Obama was backing off the threat to go after the bonuses of anybody and everybody in any way connected with Wall Street and some good news regarding housing prices, led traders and investors to send the market up close to 500 points.

Yesterday, Obama let it be known that he wants the power to take over financial firms (and pretty much on his say-so alone), a move that couldn't be taken as anything other than a big kick in the groin to investors and, accordingly, the market dropped over 100 points and took the wind out of the sails of the thought that we were

I can't help but feel a bit sorry for Geithner. His personal tax issues aside, he seems like he's a nice and competent guy caught between the rock of having a clue and the hard place of having to publicly support his has-no-clue President. He has to know that restoring confidence to Wall Street is a vital first step in restoring overall confidence in the economy... and he has to know that publicly castigating Wall Street workers (even those who don't work on Wall Street) and threatening to seize control of so-called troubled firms is not the type of thing that makes investors confident... but when he has a boss who has no friggin idea as to what really works in the world, he's forced into a position where he has to bite his tongue. I don't know how he sleeps at night, maybe he thinks he is keeping Obama from doing even more damage to the system... but he wanted the job, he got the job and now he gets to deal with it.