Geithner to Join Council on Foreign Relations

The Council on Foreign Relations has just announced that former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will join the Council on Foreign Relations later this month as a distinguished fellow.

"We are thrilled to welcome Tim back to the Council on Foreign Relations," said CFR President Richard N. Haass. "Both at Treasury and at the New York Federal Reserve, Tim was a tireless, creative, and responsible custodian of the public trust. His coming to CFR only strengthens our capacity to produce thoughtful analysis of issues at the intersection of economic, political, and strategic developments."

This is step one in Geithner's move to cash in. It would be to crass for him to grab a bankster check immediately. He'll make the cash grab in a few months when on one is looking.

I called this move at the first of the year:

Bloomberg is reporting that Treasury Secretary Geithner plans to leave the administration at the end of January, even if President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans haven’t reached an agreement to raise the debt ceiling. (They won't at that point.)

The game plan will likely be for Geithner to take a position at think tank, perhaps the Council on Foreign Relations or at the Hamilton Project. Then in 3 to 6 months he will slither over to the crony part of Wall Street and grab the big bucks.