As Americans recover from the shock and disgust of this latest [AIG] revelation, they will justifiably ask who got us into this mess,” writes Henry Blodget. “The answer, in part, is the same man who has yet to come up with a coherent plan to get us out of it: Tim Geithner.”
Fear not, Henry!

Geithner told Bloomberg TV this weekend he will “move quickly to lay out a new financing program” to help banks deal with their toxic assets.

In other words, Geithner still hasn’t put the finishing touches on the “Financial Stability Plan” he announced in mid-February to rousing condemnation because it lacked detail. More to the point, Geithner still doesn’t have a coherent plan he’s willing to share a year after the Bear Stearns-JPMorgan shotgun wedding. (And don’t kid yourself, first as President of the NY Fed, and now at Treasury, Geithner has been actively involved in every bailout – and non-bailout – of the past 12 months.)

“We don’t believe it makes sense to significantly subsidize the production and use of sources of energy (like oil and gas) that are dramatically going to add to our climate change (problem). We don’t think that’s good economic policy and we think changing those incentives is good for the country,” Geithner told the Senate Finance Committee at a hearing on the White House’s proposed budget for the 2010 spending year.

While Geithner fiddles, bank executives are burning mad over what they see as onerous regulations and micromanaging from Washington D.C. They’re especially angry now that the government’s aid has allowed them to generate profits in early 2008 (excluding write-downs on toxic assets.)

“Is this America — when you do what your government asks you to do and then retroactively you also have additional conditions?,” rails Wells Fargo CEO Richard Kovacevich, according to Bloomberg.

Kovacevich also called the ongoing stress tests “asinine” and complained (again) about being forced to take TARP money back in September — and all the accompanying restrictions on executive pay and employee junkets (err, off-sites).

One response to Kovacevich – and other executives like JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon who’ve complained about TARP-related restrictions – is simple: If you don’t like it and don’t need it, just return the money.

But the reality is bank executives do have a point about onerous government intrusion. The funny thing is this doesn’t happen when the government puts insolvent banks under full FDIC receivership, as it did last year with WaMu and IndyMac; that it is happening now suggests yet another peril of the partial nationalization that’s occurred for so many others.