Tim Geithner

What's in a name? In the Hebrew Bible a name stood for teh nature, character and calling of an individual. But today, we name our kids after a day or the week, an animal, and all sorts of interesting things. But, it seems when it comes to our economic ills, Warren Buffet is OUT and Tim Geithner is IN. The stock market (specifically the Dow) was down on Friday afternoon until.............until it closed up nearly 500 points- back above 8,000.  

With the fast turn around I went looking for what in heaven's name was going on. And lo and behold the name Tim Geithner came up. The new messiah or just a reason to rally at the close of the day?

A wave of buying swept Wall Street late Friday after news broke that President-elect Barack Obama has tapped New York Fed Chief Timothy Geithner as the next Treasury Secretary, overshadowing giant question marks hovering over Citigroup. The late-day surge helped ease the pain of a week that saw the Dow lose roughly 500 points and the S&P 500 plummet to levels unseen since 1997.

Barring last minute changes, the nominee for Treasury Secretary will be NY Fed President Tim Geithner -- a career Treasury official under both Bob Rubin and Larry Summers -- who actually had worked at the Treasury in three administrations under five Secretaries -- going back to 1988. Still, an economic God- a financial messiah? What's so hot about being one of the Fed Boyz?

Former Treasury Secretary Summers might still play a major future role in the Obama administration, according to sources. Summers came under fire from women's groups because of controversial comments he made about gender issues while President of Harvard, but sources say the decision to choose Geithner had more to do with Obama's interest in "change" and getting someone new on the team.

You mean Obama is tapping someone not in the Clinton administration?

Hey, that IS CHANGE!  :-)