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Now that QE2 is over WHO will buy treasury bills starting from tomorrow?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... l?mod=e2fb

Geithner Toys With Leaving

( By DAMIAN PALETTA And CAROL E. LEE
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has told President Barack Obama that he is considering stepping down soon after policy makers agree to raise the government's borrowing limit, a person familiar with the matter said.


Treasury Secretary Geithner
.No decision has been made and Mr. Obama could ask Mr. Geithner to stay. But Mr. Geithner's family is moving to New York from Washington in coming months and he is expected to join them, and he has mused publicly and privately in recent weeks about leaving Treasury.

He said Thursday that he is "going to be commuting for awhile (from New York to Washington), but I'm going to be doing this for the foreseeable future."

Mr. Geithner, 49 years old, is one of Mr. Obama's closest advisers and played a central role in all of the White House's biggest economic initiatives, including managing the financial crisis, passing the stimulus bill, overhauling financial regulation, and most recently pushing to increase the debt ceiling.

Mr. Geithner has met repeatedly with lawmakers and other administration officials as they work to craft a deficit-reduction package that he hopes will clear the way for Congress to raise the $14.29 trillion debt ceiling by Aug. 2.

If the debt limit is raised by then, Mr. Geithner could see it as a bookend to his time in the administration. Still, the White House's economic decisions—which he largely helped design—will be debated for years and have already formed the foundation of the 2012 presidential campaign for both parties.

Mr. Geithner's mullings were reported earlier by Bloomberg News.

The Treasury secretary has outlasted the rest of Mr. Obama's top economic team. Austan Goolsbee, chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, recently announced plans to leave by the end of August to return to his job as a professor at the University of Chicago. Also gone are Larry Summers, the first director of the National Economic Council; Christina Romer, who was Mr. Goolsbee's predecessor; Peter Orszag, the administration's first budget chief, and Jared Bernstein, who served as top economic adviser to Vice President Joseph Biden.

If Mr. Geithner leaves soon, it will be on the eve of the 2012 presidential and congressional elections, which will be focused largely on the economy, federal budget deficit and government spending.

The Treasury secretary is credited within the administration for leading the response to the financial crisis in 2009, but stubbornly high unemployment rates, persistent problems in the housing market and slow economic growth have dogged his tenure. Despite support within the White House, he never forged major alliances on Capitol Hill, which has left him open to criticism from Democrats and Republicans.

A decision on whether to stay could be forced on him soon because it will be difficult for the White House to persuade the Senate to confirm a successor in 2012, once Washington is consumed by the coming elections.

Picking a successor will be difficult. The confirmation battle could be tough, with the Treasury post drawing extra scrutiny because of the nation's weak economy and the congressional debate over how to rein in the federal budget deficit.

The White House could look for nominees who officials believe have the experience to win support from both Democrats and Republicans, such as former deputy Treasury Secretary Roger C. Altman, former White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles, current White House chief of staff Bill Daley, or Office of Management and Budget Director Jack Lew.

Mr. Geithner was narrowly confirmed by the Senate in January 2009, in part because of personal tax issues. Since taking office, he has been involved in numerous domestic and global financial crises.

He is known for his high energy, private proclivity for profanity and ability to pivot seamlessly from discussing U.S. manufacturing to the Chinese currency. He often says the country will take years to recover from the "scars" of the financial crisis, but has said the outlook is bright and dismissed political posturing in both parties as silly.

"He's one of the ablest public servants I have ever known," former President Bill Clinton said Thursday.

Mr. Geithner was often pummeled at congressional hearings amid frustration about the disappointing economic recovery, but he appeared to mostly shrug off the barbs and absorb them as part of his job. He was often criticized by liberals, who felt he was too close to Wall Street, and rebuked by conservatives, who saw him as the face of the White House's economic decisions.

Jim Vogel, a strategist at FTN Financial Capital Markets, said, "Since 2009, the capital markets have gotten very comfortable with Secretary Geithner's steady approach to both the debt markets and financial policy. That's true even when they don't always agree with all his decisions."

Mr. Vogel added, "Any replacement will have to be picked very carefully as managing the details of the country's debt burden is a tough job for even the most experienced hand in Washington."

Some investors are more critical. Jim Hardesty, chairman of Hardesty Capital in Baltimore which manages $750 million in assets, said Mr. Geithner hadn't made enough of an effort to rein in the growth of federal spending. "I think Wall Street is getting fed up with Mr. Geithner and fed up with the whole administration, they think they won't listen," Mr. Hardesty said.

The Treasury secretary has faced sporadic calls for his resignation from corners of both parties. But Mr. Obama and other White House officials have stood by him, and he enjoyed broad support from many business leaders and others who felt he had an uncommon understanding of business, economics and markets.

With his deep background of international markets, which he developed at the Treasury Department during the Clinton administration, he has pushed European leaders to act more swiftly to tackle their debt crisis, and led the international pressure on China to allow its currency to appreciate in value.

In recent weeks Mr. Geithner began to signal more strongly that he was thinking of departing. When asked in New York last month how long he plans to stay at Treasury, he raised many eyebrows when he said "It's an excellent thoughtful question. I'm thinking about it a lot these days."

—Randall Smith contributed to this article.
Write to Damian Paletta at damian.paletta@wsj.com