Geithner Tells ABC News That U.S. Will Never Lose AAA Debt Rating (Includes Complete Interview From Sunday)
Video: Tim Geithner with Jake Tapper -- February 7, 2010
- “Absolutely not. And that will never happen to this country.”
- “When people were most worried about the stability of the world, they still found safety in the Treasuries and the dollar. That is a very, very important sign of basic confidence in our capacity as a country to work together to fix these problems.”
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Dow Jones
Bond rating agency Moody's Investors Service warned Wednesday that the triple-A rating of U.S. treasury bonds could be in peril unless the federal budget deficit is reduced or the economy rebounds.
The U.S. Treasury official noted that when investors were on edge about a global financial crisis, they sought safety in U.S. Treasury securities and the U.S. dollar,
"That is a very, very important sign of basic confidence in our capacity as a country to work together to fix these problems," Geithner told ABC-TV.
The Obama administration is "deeply serious" about deficit reduction, according to Geithner, who endorsed the creation of a bipartisan commission that would be charged with recommending ways to reduce the federal deficit over the long haul.
Geithner sounded an upbeat note on the U.S. economic outlook, saying "we're seeing some encouraging signs of healing," with the economy expanding at nearly 6% in the fourth quarter and the most recent unemployment report, which showed the jobless rate fell modestly.
"This is going to take awhile and it's going to be uneven," Geither cautioned. While the risks of a double-dip recession are much lower than they have been, Geithner said "we have more work to do" to spur job creation.
The Treasury Secretary disputed remarks by newly elected Sen. Scott Brown (R., Mass.), that the economic stimulus package enacted by Congress last year has failed to create jobs.
"I don't think there's any basis for that judgment," Geithner said. He called the stimulus measures "very, very effective," and pointed to improvement in the overall economy, noting: "We have an economy now that's growing again. With growth, you're going to see jobs created."
Regarding prospects for financial overhaul, the Treasury Secretary said President Obama is committed to ensuring that Congress enacts tough measures recommended by former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker to reduce risk-taking by the nation's largest banks.
Geithner added that "I am very confident we're going to be able to do that."
Overall, Geithner said "we have made dramatic progress in trying to make sure we bring stability to this financial system at a much lower cost than anyone anticipated."
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Feb 9, 2010 at 12:29 PM
Reader Comments (14)
Geithner Says U.S. Will ‘Never’ Lose Aaa Debt Rating
Enter Geithner, The Politician
Treasury Secretary Becomes Symbol of Wall Street Business as Usual
Congressional Democrats point finger of blame at Rahm Emanuel
"Hitler tells German people that Germany cannot lose war"
puke on that SOB!
Scream on the Web, Worthless Rants
Wall Street celebrates GREECE Hope and Bang USA Bamboozled Generation with Relentless... your Pension LOOT Via PUMP/DUMP PONZI scam with your zero Cost TAX DOLLARS Handed to them by your WASHINGTON CRIMINAL TRAITOR RULERS
And what Criminal Bankers and Corporate crook doing to you? LOL
Banging and looting with Jobs shipped to ASIA
lol
http://www.pushamburger.com
GROW BALLS AND PROTEST ON STREETS OF USA
Or Fat asses keep spinning your what? On Made in China Key Boards? LOL
Cheer on, Debate on, Bash on? Lol
Obama and His Clueless Economic Criminal Clowns.........
(So Long Larry Sumers, Geithner, Bernanke are endorsed by OBAMA, he may not survive on full term in White House)
The first rule of crisis management is, “if you are in a hole stop digging!” Nobody has clued in the boy from Hawaii. This man/child does not realize that good looks and smooth speech are no substitute for knowledge and understanding.
The budget released this week by Obama and his team is staggering in its hubris. He is doing the economic equivalent of George W. Bush invading Iraq. He is not only attacking the wrong enemy for the wrong reasons but is going to exacerbate the very thing he claims to be fixing.
Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden and his wife gave an average of $369 a year to charity during the past decade, his tax records show.
Obama and many of the more “progressive” of the Dummycrats still don’t get it–if you raise taxes in the midst of a significant economic decline you will worsen the economic slide. And if you dramatically increase your debt and borrow more money? TOXIC. The lame attempt to fuel class warfare–pitting the “rich” against the poor may make some political sense but the combination of raising taxes and increased borrowing is economic suicide and will end up hurting the poorer classes and destroying many in the middle class. Just look at what has happened in Argentina over the last 28 years. That’s not change I want to believe in.
Obama Clueless Over Scott Brown Win too:LOL
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But Obama’s comments since that win show that he has no intention of revamping his core positions. Instead, he has clearly...
State of Dis-union
As State of the Union speeches go, President Barack Obama's overwrought, overlong and over-hyped seventy-one minute lecture Wednesday night was not very spectacular, not very stirring and not in touch with reality.
Obama Adds $2 Trillion in Spending and Deficits to Last Year's Budget --
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Obama unveils record $3.8 trillion budget
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Http://www.pushhamburger.com
That notion is pure heresy, and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was quick this weekend to try and dispel any thought that the U.S. would ever be in for a downgrade.
“That will never happen to this country,” Geithner said during an interview with ABC News. The remark came after Moody’s Investors Service last week said the pristine U.S. rating will come under pressure unless something is done about mounting deficits.
Geithner shouldn’t have fought Moody’s report. He should have embraced it. What better way to impress upon Congress that the U.S. is very much in crisis and needs to face up to its problems.
That reality has yet to set in on Capitol Hill. Two weeks ago, for example, the Senate shot down a proposal to create a deficit-reduction commission. The measure failed because the Left worries such a committee will cut spending, while the Right is afraid it will call for tax hikes.
So no spending cuts or tax hikes, which is what we need -- just deficits as far as the eye can see. Let’s break out the fiddles already and watch Rome burn.
This is why concerns over the so-called PIGS -- Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain -- or those on the geographic and economic periphery of the European Union are really a sideshow. The real danger to markets lies with the DOLTS, or Dangerously Over-Leveraged Triple-A Superpowers.
That club currently consists of the U.S.
Let’s Pretend
So far, membership has allowed the U.S. and its elected representatives to pretend urgent action isn’t needed. After all, DOLTS have the world’s reserve currency and nukes.
This supposedly means we can spend our way out of debt because creditors like China will forever lend us money. Failing that, we can just print more dollars.
Yet even these benefits can’t change the fact that the U.S. is on an unsustainable course with deficits rising, the national debt soaring, and Social Security and Medicare preparing to go bust. At 10 percent of gross domestic product, the $1.6 trillion budget deficit for 2010 forecast by the Obama administration ranks as the highest such ratio since World War II.
The administration predicts that this ratio will fall to about 4 percent by 2015. For that to happen, though, the economic recovery mustn’t sputter.
U.S. Weakening
Debt, meanwhile, is set to climb to 77 percent of gross domestic product by 2019, according to Moody’s, while “debt affordability would be weakened by higher interest costs in the next several years.” That compares with government expectations at the end of 2008 of a future debt-to-GDP ratio of about 40 percent by the end of this decade.
No wonder investors like Marc Faber, who publishes the Gloom, Boom and Doom report, say the U.S. would carry a below- investment grade, or junk, rating if the country were a company.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=aGL2Yx0AiblI
http://www.businessinsider.com/harvard-derivatives-whistleblower-larry-summers-got-me-fired-2009-11
Larry Summers Looks Like He's Trying to Sneak Away
http://wizbangblog.com/content/2010/02/01/larry-summers-looks-like-hes-trying-to-sneak-away.php
How to silence Larry Summers
http://blogs.reuters.com/macroscope/2009/08/11/how-to-silence-larry-summers/
http://kickthemallout.com/
I was just checking out your "KICK THEM ALL OUT" link. I commend these guys for the idea but I don't think it'll work here in the US like IT DID in Argentina because Americans are too complacent & passive in comparison to the people down there. Argentines have ALWAYS traditionally had a distrustful, wary relationship with their goverment leaders whereas Americans are MUCH more easily sheparded and submissive.
Take for example the issue of gun ownership. Americans LOVE their assault rifles, their hollow point ammunition and their semi automatic handguns and their always CRYING about how "the government wants to take my arms so they can then make me a slave!"
Well GUESS WHAT MF'S? The government is going to LET YOU KEEP your weapons and then STILL ENSLAVE YOUR SORRY ASSES ANYWAY!
And you DESERVE it America for frying your braincells on American Idol.
You obviously do not live in the country, rural folk have always had a distrust of Goobermint.
"the government wants to take my arms so they can then make me a slave!"
Only the people can accept slavery, and accept they will, that is the beauty of it, people will choose the yoke willingly when the stores and fast food restataunts are closed. They will turn in mass to the Goobermint and say " I will do anything if you just feed me". The Goobermint has the people right where they want them, to sorry to do anything for themselves.
Then Mussolini's vision of Fascism as a blending of Goobermint and business called corporatism will be complete.