Word: recentered
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Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner had every reason to think he had seen all of AIG's dirty laundry. The government owned 80% of the company, and Geithner had just orchestrated AIG's most recent handout - its fourth, if you are keeping score, for $30 billion on March 2 - to prevent the teetering insurance giant from going over the cliff and taking the rest of the global financial system with it. AIG had already cost the taxpayers some $170 billion, mostly to repair the damage done by one of its units, AIG Financial Products (AIG FP), which last year alone piled...
...fact that AIG was in Washington long before the current Administration hasn't spared the Obama team from criticism over the recent bonus payouts. The main target for the opprobrium is Geithner. He still enjoys the confidence of U.S. allies abroad and understands the deeply complicated world of global finance far better than the lawmakers who may soon write new legislation to regulate it. But he has not been a strong public face for a government that needs to project confidence. He has been slow to staff his department, hampering the Administration's ability to react to the crisis...
Address the anger. The public is mad about having to bail out the financial institutions who got the world into this mess - and the recent revelations about payouts to fat-cat executives at AIG, RBS and elsewhere are stoking the anger. It's time for some symbolic action. One suggestion: an agreement that every firm receiving taxpayers' money should pay its employees the same as other public-sector workers, such as teachers. That would assuage public fury, and provide an incentive for the banks and insurers in question to sort out their problems fast...
There was a comical moment in the front row at a recent runway show in Paris when two magazine editors in sharply tailored jackets had to pivot awkwardly in their seats to make room for their linebacker shoulder pads. Not since Tess McGill suited up to outwit her boss in Working Girl in 1988 have big shoulders played such a prominent role in fashion. For fall, designers like Michael Kors, Donna Karan and Stefano Pilati of Yves Saint Laurent showed structured jackets, enlisting the signature '80s power tool to try to give shaky consumers some self-assurance--and, they hope...
...Western-style democracy. They want a blend, with clerics playing an advisory role in societies, not ruling them. As a consequence, Islamist parties are now under intense scrutiny. "Islamists, far from winning sweeping victories, are struggling to maintain even the modest gains they made earlier," says a recent survey by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In Iraq's recent elections, for example, secular parties solidly trumped the religious parties that had fared well four years...