Timothy Geithner -NY Scandal

Tim Geithner, the 75th United States Secretary of the Treasury, was born August 18, 1961, spent much of his childhood overseas with his father in Asia. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1983, with a degree in government and Asian studies. Then he attended Johns Hopkins in Ease Asian studies and International Economics for a master's degree. He was employed by Kissinger and Associates from 1985-88. At that point he joined the Department of the Treasury and worked in three successive administrations. He also worked at the International Monetary Fund before being named president of the Federal Reserve Bank in New York. He was considered a workaholic and was basically unknown.

Geithner married Carole Sonnenfeld in 1985, as they had met at Dartmouth. They have 2 children, a son named Benjamin and a daughter named Elise. Geithner is an excellent tennis player and is a skier.

Geithner was nominated and given the position of Treasure Secretary despite the fact that he cheated on his taxes. He failed to pay the social security and medicaid taxes for years for his housekeeper and they weren't even here in the United States legally. He claimed it was an "oversight" but he did remember to deduct summer camp for his son. He paid up immediately when the public became aware that he owed nearly $40,000 in back taxes since 2001. How can someone who is a tax cheat be placed in the most important position of Treasury Secretary? President Obama should have eliminated him immediately when he learned about this history.

Here we go again with another scandal, which may result in prison time for our Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner. The Federal Reserve of New York was under Mr. Geithner’s leadership until he was appointed US Treasury Secretary in January, 2009. In addition, he worked with Fed chief Ben Bernanke and former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Geithner was one of the key architects of the federal response to the economic meltdown of 2008.

According to a series of emails made public by Congressman Darrell Issa (ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee), AIG had planned to inform investors in a regulatory filing published on December 24, 2008, that it had paid money owed to counter-party banks (Goldman Sachs, Deutsch Bank and a dozen others). They owed them money for credit-default swaps they had bought from those firms. Furthermore, the emails stated an official from the NY Fed crossed out these references. Mr. Geithner apparently instructed AIG (American International Group) to remain silent concerning the details of paying the counter-party banks concerning money they were paid at a rate of 100% on the dollar

Additionally, the unethical and probably illegal aspect is the fact that documents were probably falsified and while this was happening our US government was bailing out AIG to the tune of $185 billion using our tax dollars. These emails emerged five months later in the filing. The NY Fed apparently was behind the decision to pay these banks in full rather than at a discounted rate. "It appears that the New York Fed deliberately pressured AIG to restrict and delay the disclosure of important information," said Congressman Issa.

It is expected that Congressman Issa will convene an investigation by Congress and require Tim Geithner to testify. Our president put a man who didn’t bother to pay taxes until he was selected as the US Treasury Secretary in this office, so why would we believe any of his denials now? It seems everyone is scrambling to tell their own version of the events. I will conclude with "The love of money is the root of all evil."