Free Republic

Tim Geithner should be given the option to resign immediately, or be fired. He is either incompetent, too conflicted to do his job with the banks properly, or possibly both. Stephen Friedman should be investigated for $5.4 million in profits made through potential insider trading. His breach of fiduciary responsibility as chairman of the NY Fed is shocking...

Wow, that has to be a record for shortest tenure ever at the NY Fed. His resignation letter (below), is as Dealbook notes, rather disingenuous: Mr. Friedman was chairman of the New York Fed at the same time he was a member of Goldman’s board. He also had a substantial stake in the firm as the Fed was crafting a solution to keep Wall Street banks afloat. Denis M. Hughes, deputy chair of the board, will take over as the interim chairman, the New York Fed said in a statement. (Read Mr. Friedman’s letter after the jump.) Because the New...

President Bush finally brought Treasury Secretary John Snow in from the cold yesterday, inviting him to remain in the job for the second term. Mr. Snow accepted, even though he'd been left shivering for more than a week by some nasty White House leaks that he was a short-timer. We suppose this decision signals continuity in the coming months, which means that economic policy will be dominated by the White House itself. This worked well enough in the first term on tax policy, though we'd note that Mr. Bush's second-term agenda is far more ambitious. We hope that whoever replaces...

What do you when you've done everything you can to try to save a friend from making a grave error, but they don't want to be saved? That is the situation with the apparent impending nomination of former Goldman Sachs partner Stephen Friedman to be head of the President's National Economic Council. After two days of furious lobbying by the Reaganite supply-side klan to prevent a catastrophically ill-advised appointment, the Bush White House has now tried to gamely reassure free-market tax cutters that Friedman will be a loyal team player who can help sell the president's economic program of...

It's likely the White House chortled Monday when President Bush offered up CSX Corp. chairman John W. Snow as the new Treasury secretary. They deserve a chortle or two. In the heavy speculation that followed Paul O'Neill's firing, Snow's name wasn't on anyone's list of possible successors.Apparently Vice President Dick Cheney quietly led a search team that came up with Snow. In contrast, the White House loudly leaked the name of investment banker Stephen Friedman to replace Larry Lindsey as head of the National Economic Council. Neither the stock market nor the rest of the world (nor me) knows...