Change: Timothy Geithner, (Fed, IMF, Kissinger Associates, CFR, BIS) Nominated for U.S. Treasury Secretary

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Change: Timothy Geithner, (Fed, IMF, Kissinger Associates, CFR, BIS) Nominated for U.S. Treasury Secretary
November 24th, 2008

* read the Bloomberg piece below.:
Timothy F. Geithner became the ninth president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on November 17, 2003. In that capacity, he serves as the vice chairman and a permanent member of the Federal Open Market Committee, the group responsible for formulating the nation’s monetary policy.

Mr. Geithner joined the Department of Treasury in 1988 and worked in three administrations for five Secretaries of the Treasury in a variety of positions. He served as Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs from 1999 to 2001 under Secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers.

He was director of the Policy Development and Review Department at the International Monetary Fund from 2001 until 2003. Before joining the Treasury, Mr. Geithner worked for Kissinger Associates, Inc.

Mr. Geithner graduated from Dartmouth College with a bachelors degree in government and Asian studies in 1983 and from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies with a masters in International Economics and East Asian Studies in 1985. He has studied Japanese and Chinese and has lived in East Africa, India, Thailand, China, and Japan.

Mr. Geithner serves as chairman of the G-10s Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems of the Bank for International Settlements. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Group of Thirty.

He and his wife, Carole Sonnenfeld Geithner, have two children.

Via: Bloomberg:

The appointment of Timothy Geithner as U.S. Treasury secretary would deprive Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke of his top troubleshooter on Wall Street, compelling the Fed chief to act fast to find a replacement.

Geithners departure would mean the loss of the Fed executive Bernanke has relied on most to keep the financial system from collapsing in this years credit crisis. His successor may be another official involved in the governments response, such as Fed Governor Kevin Warsh or New York Fed markets chief William Dudley, economists said.

Bernanke turned to Geithner, 47, president of the New York Fed, to carry out the rescues of Bear Stearns Cos. and American International Group Inc., and to help stem market turmoil after the decision to allow Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. to fail. Geithner was involved in the weekends government rescue of Citigroup Inc. and oversees most of the Feds special lending programs set up this year to channel more than $1 trillion to banks and other financial institutions.

Leadership of the New York Fed is always an important post but vastly more important at the moment, said former Fed Governor Lyle Gramley, now senior economic adviser at Stanford Group Co. in Washington. It would be very important to fill it as rapidly as possible.

Obama's Announcement

President-elect Barack Obama announced today that he will nominate Geithner as Treasury secretary, and will appoint Lawrence Summers, Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton, to head the National Economic Council.

The president of the New York Fed serves as the vice chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee and is the only district bank president with a permanent vote on interest rates. The other 11 presidents rotate votes every two or three years.

The New York Fed is the largest of the 12 district banks and plays a unique role, serving as the central banks chief liaison to securities firms and trading with bond dealers to keep the Feds main interest rate close to the target set by policy makers. The bank, which employs about 2,800 people, supervises some of the biggest U.S. commercial banks, with examiners reviewing their books on a regular basis.

Should Geithner become Treasury secretary, Dudley, the New York Feds executive vice president for markets, may serve as interim president, Gramley said.

Dudley, 55, former chief U.S. economist at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., worked with Geithner on conceiving and operating the special lending programs. He joined the New York Fed in January 2007 after two decades at Goldman and is in charge of the central banks trading with Wall Street bond dealers.


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