Hank Paulson was recently interviewed for the latest issue of The DAM, Dartmouth’s alumni magazine, by fellow Dartmouth grad, Jake Tapper. The Kegs talk about a whole mess of topics, including but not limited to gal-pal Tim Geithner (the two have an “excellent” relationship), Paulson’s hippie daughter Amanda (her friends in college were people son Merritt would call “granolas,” if you know what HP means and I think you do), his nickname to SAE fraternity brothers (“The Phantom,” because no one ever saw the shady motherfucker), Christian Science (when Hank prayed during the crisis, it was “for humility, to take ego
out of it, for insight and judgment and wisdom”), and the worst kind of heave (sayeth Big P: “All my life, if I’m really exhausted—it doesn’t happen much—I will have dry heaves”). Then Tapper steers the conversation toward his subject’s death, like any seasoned pro is trained to do (my preference is to ask at the beginning of the conversation, as an ice breaker, but anywhere you can fit it in is fine). “What might be the headline of your obituary?” Jake wonders aloud. This is Paulson’s response.
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Tim Geithner
As previously mentioned, Tim Geithner recently embarked on a pussy-offensivepussy outreach program. Whether it’s that he’s trying to gain fans among those who’ve got ‘em, has one himself, or a little bit a of both matters not. He’s going grocery shopping, he’s showing his emotions, he’s appearing in Vogue. And from the last, we’ve learned a few things about Timbo we’d previously never known. Such as:
* He’s somehow convinced people he “has the kind of looks that can go either way: Half an inch one way he’s John F. Kennedy; half an inch the other he’s Lyle Lovett.”
* He’s self-aware, and self-deprecating: “the first thing he tells [writer Rebecca Johnson] when we sit down is how much ‘shit’ he’s going to get from his friends for doing an interview with Vogue.”
* His mother watches CNBC like she’s on a trading floor: “The intensity, the consequences, the lack of a road map, the fact that three minutes after an announcement you are seeing the reaction on CNBC– it’s almost unprecedented. The televised babble became so bad at times, Geithner’s own mother thought about watching TV with the volume turned down.”
* He and Jon Stewart are gonna have words: “…the angriest he’s ever been was probably the afternoon a camera crew for Jon Stewart’s Daily Show showed up unexpectedly at his house in Larchmont, New York…Geithner’s teenage children, who were home alone at the time, had not be in on the joke. When a camera crew pulled up, they called their father at his office, terrified. ‘Ive never seen him so mad,’ one aid remembers.”
* He most likely uses an herbal remedy to take the edge off things: “What little free time he has, he prefers to spend with his children, building a ramp in the driveway for skateboarding, surfing off the coast of Cape Cod, building a guitar by hand.”
* He fantasized about being “the guy who saved Citi” but spared us having to live in a world without Uncle Vik: “…he is said to have been sorely tempted by an offer to run Citibank.”
As you’ve probably noticed, Tim Geithner’s had a pretty tough go of it lately. People are pissed at him about the bailouts, no one will get off him about AIG, many feel he “coddles” Wall Street and rarely a day goes by that the Treasury Secretary’s ousting is not called for, and not just by pissants on the internet. His job doesn’t actually seem to be in any actual danger at the moment– according to Rahm Emanuel, “The president’s view is that Tim is one of the stars,” but clearly something needs to be done about how the public sees TG. To show them he cares. That he “gets” it. That he’s just one of them. But how? An article this morning concerning T. Geith’s “charm offensive” included the following photo of Mr. Geithner, touring a supermarket in Philadelphia with Michelle Obama:
Our initial thought: what the hell? How is Tim Geithner mixing it up at the grocery store and smiling maniacally at a bunch of produce going to endear him to the public? Then, a few lines later, this:
Mr. Geithner says even his wife has urged him to show more emotion in confronting the banks.
So, okay. Grocery stores…not being afraid to show his feelings….he’s not working the…vagina angle is he? No, come on. You’re making huge leaps in logic here, we said to ourselves. We actually almost started to feel guilty for coming to such gender stereo-typing conclusions, and would’ve continued to do so, if the next thing we saw hadn’t been this:
This came in handy, as he was thinking of calling out anyway due to the Super Bowl hangover.
Hug-lover Timmy G., testifying today (does the guy’s job entails something else than testifying at hearings?) before the Senate Budget Committee, proposed to enact a “carried interest” tax for hedge funds and PE managers – a move that could double some funds’ taxes.
The following post is by InfiniteGuest, a regular reader and frequent commenter.
Ask a friend, “What do you think of Ben Bernanke,” and you get a substantive response, making comparisons to Greenspan, speaking more generally about Central Banks, the Great Depression, society at large, widening and continuing the discussion. “What do you think of Barack Obama?” yields comparisons to President Bush, opinions on the Presidency as an institution, on health care, our wars and our foreign policy, and of course, the state of race relations in America. Ask a friend about Larry Summers, Paul Volcker or Robert Rubin and expect a long conversation to follow. Hank Paulson provokes a referendum on Goldman Sachs. The mention of Paul O’Neill or John Snow makes for a good discussion of ethics. But ask, “What do you think of Tim Geithner,” and after, “I don’t like him,” the conversation stalls.
SheBair is oddly pulling a Geithner, flip flopping around the prop trading ban proposal. Just like her nemesis, she’s adopting a “yeah, it’s a great idea but I don’t know” attitude toward Obama’s proposal.
At Wednesday’s AIG hearing, Congressman McHenry asked Timmy G. how he could back the Volcker Rule while having said that he was opposing a Glass-Steagall return, screaming at him: “How do you reconcile those two beliefs? They are direct opposites”
9:55 5 minutes to show time. While we wait:
(I have it on good authority that Geithner and Paulson have rehearsed the above moves and will be performing them in lieu of opening remarks. Or they’ll just sit there and recuse themselves while turning red. It’ll be one of these two things. Hoping against hope…)
10:10 Rep. Towns: “The AIG counterparties were given a piggy-bank full of taxpayer money and told ‘help yourselves’.”
E-Towns invites everyone to join him in fixing the system. Come on down.
10:18 Rep. Issa comes out with the big guns– the old man and his dog, who told Issa bankruptcy would’ve been a better option, and who is putting together a jigsaw puzzle that will reveal a picture of Geithner shoving hundos in Lloyd’s g-string.
10:20 T.Geith’s eyebrows are not happy.
10:24 Geithner did what he did for the American people. He loves you all so damn much.
10:28 AIG was “the only fire company operating at the time.” So TG whipped out his hose, and did what he had to do.
10:40 This decision didn’t come easy. It was like Sophie’s Choice out there.
10:42 Can we take a guess as to what the girl behind TG is cracking up about?
Literally.
…an attitude honed during eight years of fighting white-collar criminals and Colombian drug lords as an assistant United States attorney — he still has the knife from a foiled attempt on his life in a field outside Bogota — are propelling Mr. Barofsky over barriers that have slowed the others.
SIGTARP’s Neil Barofsky Is Way More Badass Than We Realized [Daily Intel]
Testicle bombers can apparently board planes freely despite being on terrorist watchlists and after having been reported to the CIA, but dammit, AIG emails will get a national security status.
- Use the Bloomberg command
NH BLG_DEALBREAKER <GO>
to access Dealbreaker
