Geithner's Guide to High Finance

Quickly loan money to desperate investment banks via TARP.

Get the Federal Reserve to create money and use the money to buy junk assets from investment banks, so that they can pay back TARP.

Declare yourself  a financial genius:

Overall financial bailout costs look cheap compared to past crises, with the final net cost of U.S. Treasury rescue efforts likely under $25 billion, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Thursday.


Geithner told bailout overseers that the Treasury expects to earn a profit on its remaining support for banks, automakers, credit markets and American International Group as part of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, although it would likely lose money on its housing support programs.

Leave Fed standing alone to deal with future price inflation, and hope people forget that the eventual inflation is tied to the Treasury's so-called TARP "profits".