Why Tim Geithner should now be in jail for Securities Fraud

He should be in jail for Securities Fraud and for stealing your money.

He leaked Fed policy changes ahead of the public announcement to select members of the big banks who then used the information to speculate with.

Not only did the big banks make billions from Geithner, they stole YOUR money.
They stole it from the people who manage your 401k or manage your State pension fund - like Calpers, the Californina state pension fund. Those people were not in the know.

Unsurprisingly what Geithner did in leaking Fed policy announcements to select individuals is contrary to every securities principle and law.
He should be prosecuted for breaking the law and get a long stretch in jail.

The evidence to convict him is in the official Federal Reserve FOMC minutes from August 2007.
The star witness is another member of the Federal Reserve board - Jeff Lacker as documented in the FOMC minutes.

On August 17, 2007, the Fed's Board of Governors announced a key change to primary credit lending terms, whereby the discount rate was cut by 50 bp — to 5.75% from 6.25% — and the term of loans was extended from overnight to up to thirty days. This reduced the spread of the primary credit rate over the fed funds rate from 100 basis points to 50 basis points. News of the emergency measure was supposed to be kept secret from market participants as it was substantially market moving. It wasn't. And just when we thought our opinion of the outgoing Treasury Secretary and former NY Fed head Tim Geithner, whose TurboTax incompetence is now legendary, couldn't get lower, it got lower. Much lower.

From the August 16, 2007 transcript (page 13 of 37) of the conference call preceding this announcement.

MR. LACKER. If I could just follow up on that, Mr. Chairman.

CHAIRMAN BERNANKE. Yes, go ahead.

MR. LACKER. Vice Chairman Geithner, did you say that [the banks] are unaware of what we’re considering or what we might be doing with the discount rate?

VICE CHAIRMAN GEITHNER. Yes.

MR. LACKER. Vice Chairman Geithner, I spoke with Ken Lewis, President and CEO of Bank of America, this afternoon, and he said that he appreciated what Tim Geithner was arranging by way of changes in the discount facility. So my information is different from that.

CHAIRMAN BERNANKE. Okay. Thank you. Go ahead, Vice Chairman Geithner.

VICE CHAIRMAN GEITHNER. Well, I cannot speak for Ken Lewis, but I think they have sought to see whether they could understand a little more clearly the scope of their rights and our current policy with respect to the window. The only thing I’ve done is to try to help them understand—and I’m sure that’s been true across the System—what the scope of that is because these people generally don’t use the window and they don’t really understand in some sense what it’s about.

At least we now know who the bankers' mole on the FOMC was before, as gratitude for his services, he was promoted to Treasury Secretary of the US. Because if he leaked one, he probably leaked them all.

Yesterday we news broke of what is prima facie evidence, sourced by none other than the Federal Reserve's official August 16, 2007 conference call transcript, that then-NY Fed president and FOMC Vice Chairman Tim Geithner leaked material, non-public, and very much market moving information (the "Geithner Leak") to at least one banker, in this case then Bank of America CEO Ken Leiws, in advance of a formal Fed announcement - an act explicitly prohibited by virtually every capital markets law (and reading thereof). It was refreshing to see that at least several other mainstream outlets, including Reuters, The Hill and the NYT, carried this story.

It is notable that Richmond Fed's Jeff Lacker who made disclosure has not backed down from his prior allegation and told the NYTyesterday that "My understanding was that President Geithner had discussed a reduction in the discount rate with these banks in connection with these initiatives." What, however, the mainstream media has not touched upon, yet, is just how profound the market response to the Geithner Leak was, and by implication, how much money those who were aware of what the Fed was about to do made. Perhaps, it should because as we show below, the implications were staggering. But perhaps what is even more relevant, is why the Fed's previously disclosed details of Mr. Geithner's daily actions at the time, have exactly no mention of any of this. 

The Geithner Leak

Those who happened to have the misfortune of trading stocks on August 16, 2007, and especially those who were short the stock market just because they saw the writing on the wall - writing that would crush the S&P to 666 in one and a half short years and lead to the failure or consolidation of half of America's banking system - remember that day very well. What happened on August 15, and continued through the 16th was an aggressive bout of selling, that took the S&P from 1390 to 1360 at the close of the prior day trading day, and subsequently sent it lower by another 30 points to 1330 at just about 2 pm Eastern. What happened next would have otherwise remained a mystery, if not for yesterday's declassification of the Fed's 2007 transcripts. Because suddenly, out of nowhere, an unprecedented bout of buying started with no news to serve as a catalyst. The buying sent the S&P soaring by some 50 points (!) in the span of an hour.

Once again - there was no market-moving news to explain this move. At least no publicly disclosed market-moving news.

Now we know whose job it was to unleash the buying spree at precisely 2:00 pm on that Thursday. His name: Timothy Franz Geithner.