I mean that’s obviously the most interesting part about this piece by the Wall Street Journal’s Damien Paletta and Deborah Solomon:
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner blasted top U.S. financial regulators in an expletive-laced critique last Friday as frustration grows over the Obama administration’s faltering plan to overhaul U.S. financial regulation, according to people familiar with the meeting.
The proposed regulatory revamp is one of President Barack Obama’s top domestic priorities. But since it was unveiled in June, the plan has been criticized by the financial-services industry, as well as by financial regulators wary of encroachment on their turf.
But this part was also good:
Among those gathered in the Treasury conference room were Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair.
Friday’s roughly hourlong meeting was described as unusual, not only because of Mr. Geithner’s repeated use of obscenities, but because of the aggressive posture he took with officials from federal agencies generally considered independent of the White House. Mr. Geithner reminded attendees that the administration and Congress set policy, not the regulatory agencies.
Not to sound like our Treasury Secretary, but what the %$#& was Bernanke doing in the room? The Fed chair is supposed to be independent of the president, setting monetary policy removed from the political considerations of, say, the largest financial regulatory shake-up since the Great Depression. With its more than one trillion dollars in post-housing bust emergency lending and Bernanke recently on what amounts to a political tour, shouldn’t Congress have oversight of the Fed?
On a related note, I’m not clear how much Geithner’s reminder about who sets policy is completely accurate. My understanding is Schapiro and Bair have a say. They’re not created equal, but each federal agency at least ostensibly has a voice in a president’s policy agenda. Except, that is, the Federal Reserve.-MB