Jim Cramer's Best Blogs

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Thain and Geithner Get Their Unjust Rewards
Posted at 4:40 p.m., Jan. 22, 2009

Let's talk truth about two ne'er-do-wells who are going to get away with financial murder: John Thain and Tim Geithner. Of course, today they are both being hounded for their silly, foolish and some would say reckless and even felonious actions regarding their office designs and lack of tax payments.

I do know that if I were an enterprising prosecutor, I would be looking into malfeasance for this kind of spending by a public company official at Merrill, and I know that I would be seeking to indict Geithner for tax evasion. Both are too juicy not to go after.

But we know that nothing will happen to either of them. They are above the law and untouchable for a variety of reasons, including friends and power.

I just wish that we would deal with the real issues here, the issues of substance: the hoodwinking of Bank of America(BAC Quote) by Thain and the hoodwinking of America by Geithner.

I haven't liked Thain since he snookered me about market share and achievements at the New York Stock Exchange. It was largely at the insistence of all the things that Thain promised that I got so behind NYSE Euronext(NYX Quote) in a disastrous series of recommendations. He totally pants'd me. Well, it looks like he pants'd Bank of America, too. And now Ken Lewis, the CEO, is fighting for his bank's life. I was thrilled that Thain was fired, but it was too late, as you could argue that he looted both Merrill and BofA on the way to the exit.

Geithner? I have been saying for the better part of the year that he was in the room for every bad decision that's been made. Sure, I hear it endlessly that nobody saw it coming. Hey, my kids saw it coming: they watched their dad on YouTube telling 'em it. I keep hearing that nobody predicted that whole firms would go out of business. But that was the whole point, repeatedly, about my rant, that "firms would go out of business" and we were looking at "financial Armageddon."