That's the point, isn't it? Geithner was confirmed and is serving as the chairman of our central bank, one of the most powerful financial positions in the world, if not the most powerful such position. The Europeans could care less whether he did or didn't file tax returns or whether he employed an undocumented domestic. Only American political partisans care about such things. In the current grand scheme of things those issues are totally irrelevant.

The more important message, I think, is that we have dispatched a very senior member of our current political administration to try to convince the Europeans to do things that we have been unable and unwilling to do ourselves. Our financial situation is at least a precarious as several of the European countries. And while the U.S. might be able to skate through for a bit more time if everything else in the world remains stable, a collapse of the European economies and banks would pull us into a vortex of worldwide economic collapse as well. It will happen very quickly. Watch how quickly your 401k's or investment portfolios lose a whole lot more value than has happened in the last couple of weeks. Watch what happens to our already too high unemployment rate. Be conscious of possible "run" on some of our weaker banks (read: Bank of America).

Now is not the time to be spouting partisan criticisms of individuals in our current administration. Now IS the time to be demanding from our elected representatives that the the things that need to be done actually get done to both stabilize our debt situation and provide leadership to the rest of the developed world. Entitlements need to be reduced and in some cases eliminated. Spending must be reduced dramatically. Our spending on defense will prpobably have to be cut in half. The tax code needs to be revised and simplified. And probably a well-designed program to increase federal revenues needs to be developed.

Otherwise, as I said in the title to the first post in this thread...why should they listen to us?