Today's Outrage: Geithner Goes Ballistic

WASHINGTON (TheStreet) -- Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner lost his cool with fellow regulators who aren't marching to the administration's beat on financial reforms.

Geithner reportedly launched an all-out cussing tirade Friday in a meeting with Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro and FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair.

The blowup is apparently Geithner's way of getting everyone to fall in line with President Obama's plan to revamp the U.S. financial regulatory system, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, which naturally cited unnamed sources.

We can only assume that the "people familiar with the meeting" that aired this dirty laundry came from the side of the regulators who received the tongue lashing.

I imagine it was very amusing for Ben Bernanke to see his former subordinate ranting like a political big shot.

Sounds like Geithner put on quite a show. No doubt his fellow regulators, who represent quasi independent authorities, feel duly cowed.

This administration wants action and lock-step conformity to the master plan. There's no room for dissent when the president is trying to show he's got things under control.

It's bad enough that big banks like Goldman Sachs (GS Quote), JPMorgan(JPM Quote), Morgan Stanley (MS Quote), American Express (AXP Quote), BB&T (BBT Quote), Capital One (COF Quote) and Bank of New York Mellon (BK Quote) are getting out from under the government's thumb by repaying taxpayer bailout money.

Now the administration can only pull the strings at Bank of America (BAC Quote), Citigroup (C Quote) and AIG (AIG Quote), plus a bunch of smaller banks with no particular political clout.