From Stocks to Watch Today (yesterday, 6:43 pm EDT):
U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was on CNBC’s “Closing Bell” this afternoon with Maria Bartiromo, and when asked whether the U.S. will sell a stake in American International Group (AIG), he punted, instead extolling the firm’s progress with a vague promise of an exit.
“AIG, as you have seen, is making incredibly rapid progress in putting in place [a] restructuring plan that brings down the risks in AIG financial products which is where a lot of the risk was concentrated,” said Geithner. “All driven by the objective to make sure we are minimizing the risk of loss to the taxpayer and to get the taxpayer out of the companies as quickly as we can.”
Geithner went on to describe the lack of tools to deal with non-bank firms, such as Fannie Mae (FNM), and how the current legislation under discussion would give the government power to “dismember” failing parts of those companies, using the analogy of drawing a “fire break” around a house on fire.
Other tidbits:
What do we do about the looming disaster in commercial real estate? “Commercial real real estate will still be a problem for the country and we are working through that process [...] it is going to put a lot of pressure on small banks across the country who got themselves too exposed to commercial real estate [...] It is a good reason to make sure we are providing capital to the small banks across the country.”
Will the government back the holders of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (FRE) paper? “We will provide whatever amount of capital is necessary to make sure that those two institutions will meet their obligations, past and future.”>>>MORE, including video.
Speaking of "Now that's a portfolio!" here's a fine one:
Here's what was playing in the office the week Fannie and Freddie were put into conservatorship:
