Buffett Praise Is No Big Surprise

It's not really news that Warren Buffett is pleased with the job Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke are doing. What would have been surprising is if he wasn't.

Buffett, one of the world's most revered investors and chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A Quote), praised Geithner and said he couldn't see how the country could have done better than having Bernanke at the helm of the central bank, praising his decisive leadership in a series of interviews before his lunch with a Chinese investment manager who bid $2.1 million in a charity auction to dine with the Oracle of Omaha.

Financial companies, like Buffett holdings Wells Fargo (WFC Quote), US Bancorp (USB Quote), American Express (AXP Quote) and Goldman Sachs (GS Quote), certainly couldn't have done much better.

These companies were among the biggest recipients of aid through the financial sector bailout orchestrated in part last fall by Bernanke and then-New York Fed President Geithner. As the intensity of the crisis waned early this year and financial companies wanted out from under the scrutiny attached to being wards of the state, all of the above but Wells Fargo paid back the government's investment made through the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Saving the banking system benefits everyone who uses the system, so Buffett's assertion is not without merit. But there's no denying that saving the banking system benefits the banks and their shareholders even more. Just ask an ex-Bear Stearns or Lehman Brothers employee or shareholder if they wouldn't have minded a bailout.