Lead negotiators laid out the impasse in fiscal slope negotiations on the Sunday shows. It boils down to taxes, with the White House seeking that increase in the top tax rates, and Republicans claiming to be open on revenue, but only from the capping of deductions or closure of loopholes. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said [...]

In the context of doing a deficit reduction deal at all, this is an extremely strong bid that Tim Geithner delivered to John Boehner today. Now we know why Boehner whined and cried all afternoon. Let’s walk through it. House Republicans said on Thursday that Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner presented the House speaker, John [...]

Matt Yglesias makes the astute observation that Jack Lew will be the next Treasury Secretary, and I agree. However, his reasoning for this overlooks one key detail: Why? Well because the White House has decided that it wants the Treasury Secretary to be deeply involved with budget issues, and who better than a former OMB [...]

Over the holiday, Zachary Goldfarb released a fairly remarkable article recounting a meeting between the President and top economists: One year and one month before President Obama won reelection, he invited seven of the world’s top economists to a private meeting in the Oval Office to hear their advice on what do to fix the [...]

Today everyone is supposed to be optimistic about avoiding the fiscal slope. Considering the potential consequences of that avoidance, I’m not sure “optimistic” is the right word. But the idea works like this: House Republicans will allow the Senate-passed bill of extending the Bush tax cuts up to $250,000 of income into law, if they [...]

Erskine Bowles told Maria Bartiromo last night that he would not serve as the nation’s next Treasury Secretary. This apparently happened off-air, but it has been confirmed in local papers in North Carolina, Bowles’ home state: Bowles reportedly confirmed to host Maria Bartiromo off-air that he would not serve as the next Treasury secretary, according [...]

The next Administration, whoever it may be, will feature a new direction on policies around economic and finance issues. That’s because, even if Barack Obama wins re-election, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has announced that he would leave his post. So you either get a Romney Presidency and an entirely new direction on these policies, or [...]

It turns out that a whole bunch of observers can scream their collective heads off about Obama Administration housing policy for three-plus years, to almost no avail, but it takes one person with foreknowledge in the room to get the herd to nod their heads sagely. I took a look at Sheila Bair’s new book [...]

I have not read Sheila Bair’s upcoming book, “Bull by the Horns,” but it’s on a growing list (I hear former Senate staffer Jeff Connaughton’s book is excellent as well). Arthur Delaney notes that she had harsh words for HAMP, the Administration’s failed program to rescue homeowners facing foreclosure. And she didn’t shy away from accurately describing the program as one that fostered predatory lending.

Any time you hear defenders of the Obama Administration talk about how they did all they could for the economy, reached the limits of what was possible, they typically conveniently ignore housing, and the hundreds of billions of dollars they left on the table there. Today the New York Times at least bothers to pick [...]

This Standard Chartered Bank story has become really intriguing, mainly because New York Department of Financial Services head Benjamin Lawsky committed the unpardonable sin of doing his job. The story so far: this week, the DFS cited Standard Chartered with $250 billion in illegal money-laundered transactions with the government of Iran. It’s only the latest [...]