Treasury Sec fills in reporters on toxic loans plan... aide tries to embargo all that

What stunt is that, then? An embargo was attempted on a chat, which was with reporters in closed quarters, by the Treasury Sec AFTER the chat was finished. Plausible deniability of some sort? Or was it just some dumb bureaucrat trying too hard to shove people around -- not the Sec, but the press aide? Political theater, or just stupidity?

Balance of Power - Geithner Fills In Blanks of Latest Bailout . . . Off Camera - CQ Politics

[Treasury Secretary] Geithner stayed on message and appeared Obamaesque in his cool, confident demeanor. His staff was a bit more antsy, though. As the hour-long briefing concluded, a press aide tried to retroactively put an embargo on the remarks, meaning journos would have to observe a delay before reporting Geithner's comments. Many in the crowd -- a bustantial number of whom had been live-blogging or Twittering -- simply laughed.

"Too late," said one attendee. "It is?" the flustered aide replied.

I guess that's because this current Administration is so attuned to current technology. Unlike Mr. McCain, who if you haven't heard, was not enamored with using keyboards or email (damaged bones from POW torture make it hard to use a PC, perhaps). Or, maybe they are not so aware of current technology. (After all, the Obama Twitter account has not been touched since Jan. 21, 2009, for instance. I guess that cool for a campaigner to attract the young, pliable ones, but not for a Campaigner-in-Chief.)

This, below, is essence of what Treas Sec said, as far as I'm concerned.

Geithner sat at an unadorned conference table in an upstairs conference room with a bottle of mineral water and explained to about 100 reporters how the administration hopes to reinvigorate the financial system without actually taking over any financial institutions. The key is offering private investors low-cost loans from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Federal Reserve. A fact sheet distributed by Treasury aides showed how a private investor could acquire $100 worth of bad assets by ponying up as little as $6. The government would match that initial investment, and the the FDIC would cover the remaining value.

Geithner predicted a wide array of investors -- including pension funds, insurance companies, hedge funds and even individual investors -- will flock to the program. He ruled out more dramatic steps, such as turning the government into an owner of the troubled institutions. "We are the United States of America. We are not Sweden," Geithner declared, referring to that country's response to its early 1990s banking crisis.

Well, all my respect to the good people and country of Sweden, but thank God for that piece of real hope from the Obama Administration. I think there is a lot of noise going on, people accusing Obama, across the board, of socialist tendancies. The fact remains that we have, by definition but not governmental model, socialized companies. Gov'ts owning companies equals socialism. That's kinda one huge part of it. That does not mean we are joining Sean Penn's friends in Cuba and Venezuela (but don't tell Penn that, he is liable to punch someone).

They tried to embargo the chat after the fact, so what the heck might that preempt? A bit paranoid, perhaps, to think the "ObamAdmin" might try to eject any words spoken, since they attempted to "post-embargo" the chat, but this is the group that keeps reminding us -- and less offensive from them but Congress tries to claim it, too -- that they inherited this mess.


- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

Powered by ScribeFire.