Geithner Lectures Europe on Fiscal Responsibilty - Really, he did

Our financial wizard extraordinaire, US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, showed up in Europe for what he expected to be a love in between himself and the European Welfare Zone. Instead he got bitch slapped for chastising European leaders on "loose talk" and infighting. Austria's finance minister put Geithner in his place.

Geithner warns EU against infighting over Greece

"Speaking at a closed meeting of eurozone finance ministers in Poland, he is reported to have told them that the divisions were "very damaging".Some eurozone ministers seemed unhappy with Mr Geithner's comments.They have also delayed a decision over Greece's next bailout loan.

Mr Geithner reportedly said: "What's very damaging is not just seeing the divisiveness in the debate over strategy in Europe but the ongoing conflict between countries and the [European] central bank." He said that "governments and central banks need to take out the catastrophic risk to markets".

His presence at the meeting was measure of how concerned the US is about the danger of economic contagion from Europe's government debt and banking crisis.But his comments about ending divisions seemed to open up some new ones.

Austria's Finance Minister Maria Fekter was one eurozone politician at the meeting who voiced her objection to Mr Geithner's comments.

She said: "I found it peculiar that even though the Americans have significantly worse fundamental [economic] data than the eurozone, that they tell us what we should do."

Mish's Gobal Economic Trends: Geithner Believes "Woods Populated by Pixies"

The quote of the day goes to Jamie Robertson of BBC World News:

"There may be a few people who still believe Greece will not default on its debt, but my suspicion is most of them also believe elephants can fly and the woods are populated by pixies."

In a sense, Geithner is correct. Infighting should stop. However, needs to with the bus in a logical spot, not in woods populated by Geithner loving Pixies. The logical spot is default, with further talk of a Eurozone breakup, not with everyone bowing to Geithner and Pixies.

There is still a sizable amount of people in America that belive Obama, Geithner, and Bernake know what they are doing. This stunt should prove beyond any doubt Geithner is as clueless as Bernake was when he disagreed that we were about to have a recession, and housing crash - We should be very worried.

Foe more on the reasons a Euro breakup is inevitable, please see Eurozone Breakup Logistics (Never Believe Anything Until It's Officially Denied)