The New Republic

This bears [bares?] repeating:

Remember that scene in The French Connection when Popeye Dolye is in the bar and yanks this big black dude into the restroom. Remember when Doyle has to punch him in the face? Why? Because the dude was really working uncover as a cop [or an informer] and the cuts, bruising and swelling would convince the others in the bar that he was just one more black dude taking crap from The Man.

The point?

Well, I'm reasonably certain that in the talltale Noam spun above, Tim Geithner is Popeye Doyle to Wall Street's dude in the bathroom.

In other words, the "tussling" between Geithner and the big banks is basically a scam.

Here is how it might unfold.

Act One:

The news media play up the contentiousness between them. We are supposed to buy into the fairy tale that Geithner, Summers, Obama and the Congress are being "tough" on them.

Act Two:

Behind closed doors they tweak the numbers and the wording in the new regulations. They come up with a plan whereby Obama Inc. and the Congressioinal Stooges on the Banking Committees appear to be growling like a bear in the daily news. In other words, they come off in the media as being fiercely committed to cracking down.

But it's just a con. What they will do is similar to the scam lots of retailers use. They jack the price of a commodity way up. Then they put it "on sale", knowing full well that the sale price is what they wanted to sell it for all along.

Now apply that to reforming the finance industry. Don't force me to draw a picture for you.

george walton

[annie/danny]

- iambiguous

August 6, 2009 at 12:32am

Even some of our most sophisticated commentators doubt a link between consumer protection and any macroeconomic

- Anonymous

August 10, 2009 at 11:51am

Nicholas Schmidle, fellow at the New America Foundation and author of To Live Or To Perish Forever ,

- Anonymous

August 11, 2009 at 1:31pm