If Obama Isn Firing Tim Geithner, Why Is Paul Volcker Selling The New War On Wall Street?
We still think President Obama quietly fired Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner two weeks ago, when he rushed to the microphone with Paul Volcker the day after the disastrous loss in Massachusetts and announced a new war on Wall Street. The new plan Obama floated that day was called the “Volcker Rule.” And Volcker has stayed front and center since then. Today, Volcker himself expounds on the plan in the New York Times. Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who has put Wall Street first all throughout the financial crisis, has basically disappeared (except when testifying about his decision to rush into AIG and bail out the firm’s counterparties at 100 cents on the dollar). On background, the Treasury Department rejects the suggestion that its boss has been canned: Geithner was closely involved in the development of the Volcker Rule, they say, and supports it completely. If the latter is true, it seems beside the point. By choosing someone else to sell the plan, the Obama administrat
