Timothy Geithner Speaking at SAIS in 2006

I ran across a speech Timothy Geithner (now Obama's nominee for Treasury Secretary, then president of the Federal Reserve Bank of NY) gave in 2006 at the John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and thought I'd share. It's a humbling thing to listen to; three quarters of the time I had no idea what he was talking about. It's an interesting glimpse into the financial world though, and given his soon-to-be prominence in the incoming administration, some perspective on Geithner himself (assuming congress approves him). He also made an interesting point near the end of his speech (before the Q&A, which is the second half) about the IMF and it's relevance and influence today. What I understood him to say was that basically as information has become more widely available (both through disclosure by governments and business and, I'm going to input, information technology itself), the IMF has lost some of it's relevant advantage and position as a central agency with privileged access to information. He basically applauded the Fund though, saying it was a good thing overall and that it did well to not selfishly promote it's own monopoly but rather financial transparency.

It also happens to be an example of the kind of primary source media I was talking about in the post I put up a couple hours ago, both because of his position as a leader and the incredibly technical nature of the speech. To clarify though, I think there's also a place for someone like Geithner to "dumb it down" for those of us without graduate degrees in international relations (i.e. the previous US executive director at the IMF, who just happened to be in the audience), in addition to the technical discussion.

http://www.sais-jhu.edu/mp3_player/timothygeithner100406.htm