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Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner appeared this morning at the Council on Foreign Relations. The main meeting room, named after private equity kingpin and entitlement scourge Pete Peterson, was jam-packed with members, so we media hacks had to watch the proceedings on a video screen set up in the David Rockefeller Room.
Geithner’s remarks (as prepared, here; as delivered, here) mostly achieved the anodyne level customary to the genre. He’s glib in a way, but doesn’t give the impression of having a powerful or capacious mind. Though he’s 47, he still gives the impression of being a kid playing at being a grownup—or so it seemed on the closed-circuit TV.
A couple of highlights stand out amidst the boilerplate....