Summary of Timothy F. Geithner's Stress Test

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 I had a normal childhood, with just a few exceptions. I was a good student, never a great one. I was a decent athlete, and not particularly ambitious or hardworking. I grew up in a big, close, raucous family with a lot of love and laughter, and I never took life too seriously.
#2 My father was a German immigrant who settled in north Philadelphia and ran a small business as a cabinetmaker. He went to a public high school, where he was a star athlete and class president. The U. S. military paid his way through Dartmouth, where he made Phi Beta Kappa. He then spent four years as a Navy pilot.
#3 I went to an American International School in India, and I did American-kid things like join the swim team and play baseball. But unlike Foreign Service families, who were usually stationed at the embassy compound, we lived with other expats in an Indian neighborhood called Friends Colony.
#4 I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, so I just did whatever I felt like doing. I was relatively free of angst, but I had no commercial influences in my life. I didn’t think about how I would earn a living.

Sujets

• Love
• Love (disambiguation)
• Autobiography
• Business
• Biography
• Sexualité
• sexualité
• Sexualité

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 10 mai 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798822501584
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Timothy F. Geithner's Stress Test
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4 Insights from Chapter 5 Insights from Chapter 6 Insights from Chapter 7 Insights from Chapter 8 Insights from Chapter 9 Insights from Chapter 10 Insights from Chapter 11
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

I had a normal childhood, with just a few exceptions. I was a good student, never a great one. I was a decent athlete, and not particularly ambitious or hardworking. I grew up in a big, close, raucous family with a lot of love and laughter, and I never took life too seriously.

#2

My father was a German immigrant who settled in north Philadelphia and ran a small business as a cabinetmaker. He went to a public high school, where he was a star athlete and class president. The U. S. military paid his way through Dartmouth, where he made Phi Beta Kappa. He then spent four years as a Navy pilot.

#3

I went to an American International School in India, and I did American-kid things like join the swim team and play baseball. But unlike Foreign Service families, who were usually stationed at the embassy compound, we lived with other expats in an Indian neighborhood called Friends Colony.

#4

I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, so I just did whatever I felt like doing. I was relatively free of angst, but I had no commercial influences in my life. I didn’t think about how I would earn a living.

#5

I had a difficult time adjusting to life in Dartmouth, New Hampshire, in 1979. I was an unexceptional and mostly uninspired student. I had good friends, but I was not part of the fraternity mainstream on campus.

#6

I was a registered Republican, but with little conviction. I had no passion for politics. I took pictures of the 1980 primary campaign for the college newspaper, but I don’t remember if I even voted that year. I did not want to spend my life as an observer. I wanted to do things.

#7

I graduated from Dartmouth in 1983. I had been considering the Foreign Service, but eventually decided to go straight to graduate school. I applied to a bunch of master's programs in public policy, and eventually chose the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins.

#8

I spent my summer after college shucking oysters on the Cape, then moved to Washington with Carole to start our new life together. I applied for the Presidential Management Intern Program, a favored path to top executive branch civil service jobs, but I didn’t get it.

#9

I was now supposed to be an Asia specialist. I had never worked in government, but I had always wanted to be a bureaucrat. I applied to the international division of the Treasury, which was at the center of what I thought were the most interesting policy issues of that time.

#10

I was a seriously late bloomer when it came to my career. I had spent so much of my life apart from America that I wanted to work for my country. I was completely unprepared when I arrived at the Treasury, but I learned fast.
Insights from Chapter 2

#1

I was assigned to write an analysis of what European financial integration could mean for the United States, a topic I knew nothing about. I enjoyed the feel of creating something new, starting from a blank slate.

#2

I was in charge of opening up Japanese markets to U. S. firms, especially financial firms. The George H. W. Bush administration was concerned about Japanese trade barriers, and wanted to get them to provide a more level playing field.

#3

I had mixed feelings about the American policies that ended up doing some good in Japan. I was preoccupied with work, so I began the lessons late, and had only three sessions with an embarrassed tutor before Carole's water broke at an embassy reception three weeks before her due date.

#4

I was assigned to brief Larry Summers, Clinton’s nominee for undersecretary for international affairs, in 1992. Larry seemed to like that I was not afraid to speak my mind with him.

#5

I helped Larry with his briefings for the G-7 deputies meetings, and he eventually promoted me to deputy assistant secretary. I was not confident that I could live up to Larry’s expectations, as there was too much about the job that was unfamiliar to me.

#6

I was completely engaged by my work, and I liked the constant intellectual challenge of working for Larry. I was missing a lot of life with my family, though, and I felt guilty about it.

#7

During the Mexican peso crisis, I was worried that Congress would block the American government from giving Mexico a loan. It could have been a political disaster for Clinton and Rubin, as well as America’s ability to intervene in future crises.

#8

When Mexico’s leading presidential candidate was assassinated in early 1994, investors and bondholders began to fear the country wasn’t as stable as they had believed. The government tried to buy pesos to prop up the value of the currency, but that just drained its dollar reserves and heightened fears that it would default on its debts.

#9

The United States would have to help fill the gap left by Mexico’s inadequate IMF loan. The Exchange Stabilization Fund, a pot of money that Treasury was authorized to use to reduce volatility in currency markets and promote financial stability, was used to provide $20 billion in loans to Mexico.

#10

The Mexico bailout was a lesson in the terrible politics of crisis response. I had never worked on something so controversial before, and it was searing to watch the abuse showered on Rubin and Greenspan for taking a risk that seemed so compelling to me.

#11

I came up with the idea of a new $50 billion IMF reserve fund, which seemed like a lot of money at the time. I wanted to make sure that in future crises, the world wouldn’t be dependent on the United States as the dominant funding source.

#12

In 1997, the Thai economy was experiencing a financial crisis. The country had ignored the warnings of the IMF about the dangers of fixed exchange rates and short-term borrowing in foreign currency.

#13

The Thai crisis demonstrated how the IMF could be used to aid a country in need, but the United States could not take the financial lead, so we would not be calling the shots. The IMF committed about $4 billion and cobbled together another $13 billion worth of other commitments.

#14

I was promoted to assistant Treasury secretary for international affairs in late 1990, and was tasked with handling the Asian economic crisis. I was learning a lot from my colleagues, who were constantly debating and brainstorming about how to deal with the crisis.

#15

The Indonesian economy was in shambles, and the IMF was tasked with helping fix it. However, their conditions went too far and ended up breaking the political system that had kept Indonesia together for decades.

#16

The Asian financial crisis continued to spread, and by November it had reached South Korea. We were determined to put enough money into the window to stop a run, and we helped the IMF put together an unprecedented $55 billion rescue package.

#17

We had to convince Korea’s private creditors to extend the maturity of their loans to the country’s banks. We couldn’t force the creditors to agree, but we thought we could convince them that a voluntary standstill would be in their interest.

#18

The IMF was a vital institution, designed to be as detached from the politics of its member nations as possible. I had always been opposed to the Japanese proposal for an Asian Monetary Fund, which would have left Asia worse off.

#19

By 1999, the global financial system had calmed down enough that Time magazine featured Rubin, Summers, and Greenspan on its cover as The Committee to Save the World. I was undersecretary for international affairs, Larry’s original job at Treasury, and I was part of a group featured inside the magazine as The Subcommittee to Save the World.

#20

The Asian contagion was caused by the financial crisis in Mexico, which was caused by the IMF’s bailouts of Mexico and other countries. The moral hazard fundamentalists believed that the bailouts were a message to government leaders and creditors that they would be bailed out again if their bets went bad again.

#21

The Mexico program demonstrated that the IMF could reduce the depth of a financial crisis, but it did not produce Asia’s boom. The existence of firehouses does not cause fires, but it can cause people to become overconfident in the safety of their own neighborhood, which can lead to future problems.

#22

The Asian Financial Crisis was a mania that was financed by concentrated leverage, and it led to a severe crisis when creditors called in the loans and the institutions couldn’t recover the money they had lent to finance longer-term investments.

#23

I didn’t go into government to be a reforming crusader. I just wanted to do interesting and consequential work. I wanted to be part of something larger than myself. When I left Treasury, I helped craft policies that would shape the fortunes of nations and improve millions of lives.

#24

I had started at Treasury as a civil servant, but I was now an appointee in a Democratic administration. It was time for me to leave when President Bush took office. I didn’t want to get rich, and it never occurred to me to choose a job based on what I would make rather than what I would do.

#25

I ended up back in the world of financial crises, when my friend Stan Fischer stepped down as the IMF’s number two, a position traditionally held by an American. I was offered the job, but John Taylor blocked me. I was not good at sitting still, and the IMF was not that fun.
Insights from Chapter 3

#1

I was asked to interview for the position of president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank by Pete Peterson, the chairman of the board of the Fed