Too Big to Fail [302]
summoning the chief executives: Lowenstein, When Genius Failed, 216; Victoria Thieberger, “Fed’s McDonough a Cool Head in Financial Storms,” Reuters, January 16, 2003.
Geithner’s beginnings: Gary Weiss, “The Man Who Saved (or Got Suckered by) Wall Street,” Condé Nast Portfolio, June 2008; Yalman Onaran and Michael McKee, “In Geithner We Trust Eludes Treasury as Market Fails to Recover,” Bloomberg News, February 25, 2009; Daniel Gross, “The Un-Paulson,” Slate, November 21, 2008.
published a number of incendiary stories: Peter S. Canellos, “Conservatives’ Sour on ‘Rebel Media,’” Boston Globe, April 19, 2007.
Geithner played conciliator: Onaran and McKee, “In Geithner We Trust,” Bloomberg News.
recommendation from the dean at John Hopkins: George Packard, then dean of John Hopkins, recommended Geithner to Brent Scowcroft, then vice chairman of Kissinger Associates, which led to his research job. Deepak Gopinath, “New York Fed’s Geithner Hones Skills for Wall Street,” Bloomberg Markets, April 22, 2004.
a very favorable impression on the former secretary of state: “He doesn’t try to walk into a room and take it over,” Kissinger once said about Geithner. “He prevails with the power of his argument.” Candace Taylor, “Quiet NY Fed Chief Makes Loud Moves,” New York Sun, March 31, 2008.
“The Committee to Save the World”: Time’s headline for its February 15, 1999, cover, which featured the faces of Treasury secretary Robert Rubin, Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, and Treasury deputy Larry Summers.
On Thanksgiving Day, Geithner called Summers: Jon Hilsenrath and Deborah Solomon, “Longtime Crisis Manager Pleases Wall Street, Mystifies Some Democrats,” Wall Street Journal, November 22, 2008.
“Tim’s controlled, consistent, with very good ground strokes”: Onaran and McKee, “In Geithner We Trust,” Bloomberg News.
New York Fed is the only one whose president is a permanent member: “The Federal Open Market Committee includes seven members of the Board of Governors and five Reserve Bank presidents. While the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York serves on a continuous basis, the other 11 Reserve presidents serve rotating one-year terms beginning January 1 of each year.” http://www.federalreserve.gov/FOMC/.
the annual salary of the New York Fed president: The Fed chairman’s salary in 2008 was $191,300. http://www.federalreserve.gov/generalinfo/faq/faqbog.htm.
“These changes appear to have made the financial system”: Geithner, from his “Remarks at the Global Association of Risk Professionals 7th Annual Risk Management Convention & Exhibition in New York City, February 28, 2006. http://www.ny.frb.org/newsevents/speeches/2006/gei060228.html
his deputy, Steel, would be there in his place: “I very much appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to represent Secretary Paulson and the U.S. Treasury Department,” Steel said on April 3, 2008. “As you know, Secretary Paulson is on a long-scheduled trip to China.” Steel’s full speech available at: http://www.ustreas.gov/press/releases/hp904.htm.
underwriting more than 40 percent of all mortgages: Bethany Mc Lean, “Fannie Mae’s Last Stand,” Vanity Fair, February 2009; Carol D. Leonnig, “How HUD Mortgage Policy Fed the Crisis,” Washington Post, June 10, 2008.
“Their securities move like water”: Justin Fox, “Hank Paulson,” Time, August 11, 2008.
The two men had known each other since 1976: Brendan Murray and John Brinsley, “Paulson’s Surrogate Steel Sees ‘Initial’ Progress in Markets,” Bloomberg News, March 19, 2008.
Steel came from a modest background: Rick Rothacker, Stella M. Hopkins, and Christina Rexrode, “Wachovia’s New CEO Is Pro in Crisis Control,” Charlotte Observer, July 13, 2008.
“Was this a justified rescue”: Dodd’s question, as well as succeeding statements from Bernanke, Steel. and Geithner are taken directly from official Fed transcripts from the first half of the hearing. See “Panel I of a Hearing of the Senate Banking, Housing