Ron Paul: Geithner Should Be Fired Over Bankergate

Congressman says scandal proves need to strip Federal Reserve of its powers

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, January 11, 2010

Congressman Ron Paul has called for Treasury Secretary
Timothy Geithner to be fired for his involvement in the AIG bailout
scandal, adding that the fiasco proves the Fed should be stripped of
its powers and audited.

Explosive emails released last week could see Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner become embroiled in criminal charges for his role in a cover up that exposes the monumental criminality behind the $182.3 billion bailout of American International Group Inc.

In November and December 2008, The Federal Reserve Bank of New York
instructed the bailed out AIG to hide from the public details regarding
payments the insurance giant made to banks, including Goldman Sachs
Group Inc. and Societe Generale SA.

Using Fed secured taxpayer bailout money, AIG paid several banks 100
percent of the face value of credit-default swaps, as other financial
institutions were negotiating deep discounts for the unregulated paper
assets that do not have to be backed by cash.

Via his Texas Straight Talk phone update, Congressman
Paul said today that Geithner had helped hide from taxpayers the fact
that banks were compensated for “making some horrifically bad
decisions”.

“These banks should have suffered the
consequences of the huge risks they were taking,” said the
Congressman. “After all, they kept plenty of rewards when times
were good. Instead, the Fed found a way to socialize these major losses
so these banks could survive and continue making more bad decisions, at
the expense of the American people and the value of the dollar.”

Paul pointed out that claims the bailout helped save
the economy are directly contradicted by the latest job figures, which
show 85,000 job losses in December and the unemployment rate, which
according to traditional calculations stands at a whopping 22 per cent.

“It is hard to argue that this sort of government
waste has done anything but harm to our economy,” said Paul.
Raiding Main Street to bail out Wall Street is a foolish idea. Main
Street productivity and the strength of the dollar is the bedrock of
the economy. You cannot gut this foundation without eventually toppling
everything else. This is what too many policy makers either don’t
understand or refuse to face. Or even worse, perhaps they do
understand, but don’t care!”

The Congressman added that the whole fiasco only
underlined the preposterousness of the claim that the Federal Reserve
should retain its independence.

“This claim that the Fed should have
“independence” is a canard,” said Paul. “They
very much enjoy their comfortable pattern of bailing out friends and
devaluing the currency with no oversight and no accountability.
Geithner specifically asked officials at AIG not to disclose to the SEC
or to the public particulars about this special deal for his friends.
We only know these details now because AIG was eventually forthcoming
when Congress demanded some answers.”

Paul said that Geithner has been “praised and
thanked” for his actions but instead should be “rebuked and
fired,” while the scandal proves that the Fed should be stripped
of its power to engage in “experimental” monetary policy in
the future.

Watch a clip of the Congressman’s comments below.