Treasury Sec Geithner Was the Only Man for the Job? Geithner Talks Down Dollar “quite open” New Global Currency to Replace the Dollar

What is the Obama Administration doing … Are they that obtuse or is it intentional?

Barack Obama touted Tim Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury, when he was nominated as too important and the only man in America that could do the job. Really Mr. President, are you sure? Geithner has been nothing short of being over his head and not up to the task. Then again, it would appear so has Barack Obama. This is the individual that is too important to replace? Surely, you can’t be serious.

I was quite open to the $US being replaced as the international reserve currency, before I was against it.

Once again it has occurred where the Obama Administration fails to understand the magnitude of their words. One of the most important jobs of the Treasury Secretary is to defend the US dollar. However, what did Tim Geithner do … talks down the dollar and says that he was “quite open” to a suggestion that the $US be replaced and an international reserve currency.” The result, the US dollar lost value abroad and the stock markets were stunned and tanked.

As if the dollar didn’t have enough problems, Timothy Geithner took China’s bait yesterday and said he was “quite open” to its suggestion this week to displace the greenback with an “international reserve currency.” The dollar promptly fell and stocks followed, before the Treasury Secretary re-emerged to say “the dollar remains the world’s dominant reserve currency. I think that’s likely to continue for a long time.”

Mr. Geithner is learning on the job, and yesterday’s lesson is that it isn’t smart to fool with currency markets when you are already tempting fate with a gigantic U.S. reflation. Treasury and the Federal Reserve are flooding the world with dollars to break the recession, and the world is rightly getting nervous.

Geithner made these comments when answering a question to something he had not even read. Sounds a lot like the Stimulus bill that no politician read either prior to signing. As The Corner states, Geithner is obviously Obama’s fall guy for the economy and at some point will be thrown under the bus; however, until that occurs could someone “keep him duct-taped to a chair in the basement”.

“I haven’t read the governor’s proposal. He’s a very thoughtful, very careful distinguished central banker. I generally find him sensible on every issue,” Geithner said, saying that however his interpretation of the proposal was to increase the use of International Monetary Fund’s special drawing rights — shares in the body held by its members — not creating a new currency in the literal sense.

“We’re actually quite open to that suggestion – you should see it as rather evolutionary rather building on the current architecture rather than moving us to global monetary union,” he said.

Geithner later clarified his comments; however, the fact that a sitting United States Secretary of the Treasury would even entertain thoughts that the US dollar would cease being the anchor of the global monetary system should cause all to be alarmed.

“The mere fact that the US Treasury Secretary is even entertaining thoughts that the dollar may cease being the anchor of the global monetary system has caused consternation,” he said.

Mr Geithner later qualified his remarks, insisting that the dollar would remain the “world’s dominant reserve currency … for a long period of time” but the seeds of doubt have been sown.