Orrin Hatch Supports Timothy Geithner as Treasury Secretary

There’s news all over the web today about Timothy Geithener, Obama’s pick for Treasury Secretary.  It appears Geithner failed to pay $34,000 in taxes while he was working for the International Monetary Fund.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090114/ap_on_go_co/treasury_nominee

Still, GOP Sen. Orrin G. Hatch of Utah called the tax problems “a mistake that a human being can make” and cautioned fellow Republicans to “think this through” before digging in against Geithner. “They’re not going to get anybody better than him from this administration for treasury secretary,” he said.

Sure the tax issue doesn’t look good.  The problem is once again the mainstream media is framing the argument for us.  The tax issue is really small compared to the fact that Geithner worked for the IMF, the Council on Foreign Relations, and was President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York at one time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_F._Geithner#Career

After completing his studies, Geithner worked for Kissinger and Associates in Washington, D.C., for three years and then joined the International Affairs division of the U.S. Treasury Department in 1988. He went on to serve as an attache at the US Embassy in Tokyo. He was deputy assistant secretary for international monetary and financial policy (1995–1996), senior deputy assistant secretary for international affairs (1996-1997), assistant secretary for international affairs (1997–1998).^[6]

He was Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs (1998–2001) under Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers.^[6] Summers was his mentor,^[10][11] but other sources call him a Rubin protégé.^[11][12][13]

In 2002 he left the Treasury to join the Council on Foreign Relations as a Senior Fellow in the International Economics department.^[8] At the International Monetary Fund he was director of the Policy Development and Review Department (2001-2003).^[6]

In October 2003, he was named president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.^[14] His salary in 2007 was $398,200.^[15] Once at the New York Fed, he became Vice Chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee component. In 2006, he also became a member of the Washington-based financial advisory body, the Group of Thirty.^[16]

In March 2008, he arranged the rescue and sale of Bear Stearns^[10][17] and later, in the same year, he is believed to have played a pivotal role in both the decision to bail out AIG as well as the government decision not to save Lehman Brothers from bankruptcy.^[18] As a Treasury official, he helped manage multiple international crises of the 1990s^[12] in Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea and Thailand.^[13]

On November 24, 2008, President-elect Barack Obama announced his intention to nominate Geithner to be Treasury Secretary.^[19][20]

Geithner believes, along with Henry Paulson, that the Treasury Department needs new authority to experiment with responses to the financial crisis of 2008.^[10] Paulson has described Geithner as “[a] very unusually talented young man…[who] understands government and understands markets.”^[17]

If you look into Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers, you will find they were key to the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which kept commercial banks out of Wall Street^[3] Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers, and Alan Greenspan were the leading advocates of derivatives deregulation, suppressing the recommendations raised by Brooksley Born.^[4] These are considered key factors in creating the conditions that led to the financial crisis of 2007–2008.^[3][5][6]

I haven’t even got into the ethical issues over the International Monetary Fund yet.

You may ask yourself, as I am, why on earth would Orrin Hatch be backing this guy?

“They’re not going to get anybody better than him from this administration for treasury secretary,” he said.

Is Orrin Hatch just clueless?  This is yet again, why we as Utahns need to get involved in the caucus process.  We need to elect delegates who will not nominate Orrin Hatch to run yet again, or become delegates ourselves so we can nominate someone other than Orrin Hatch.

Hatch comes up for reelection in 2012.

Here is what Ron Paul has said about the IMF (International Monetary Fund) who Geithner worked for.  Ron Paul explains how the World Bank and IMF loan money to third world dictators who pocket the money. The poor of the country are left holding the bill.

If you would like to contact Orrin Hatch to tell him he should appose Geithner’s appointment as Treasury Secretary, you can contact him at:

Washington, D.C. Office:

104 Hart Senate Office Building,
District of Columbia 20510-4402
Phone: (202) 224-5251
Fax: (202) 224-6331

More Information:

There are to main opponents of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, John Pilger and John Perkins.  You can also Google just about any poor country and find news articles on how they were harmed by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

John Pilger:

The New Rulers of The World (how the WB and IMF enslaved Indonesia)

War By Other Means (a look at the effects of the IMF and World Bank)

John Perkins:

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man