Geithner guarantees no double-dip

Embattled Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner showed up on NPR late yesterday and was quite confident that, come what may in 2010, the U.S. government will be able to keep the U.S. economy propped up (well, not in those exact words).

Seldom do you hear a major Washington policymaker guarantee that something will or won't happen.

The obvious problem is that if you're wrong such vows can come back to haunt you as they're replayed continuously on the 24/7 cable news shows and commented on endlessly in the blogosphere.
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MICHELE: Pardon me for presenting you with all these doomsday scenarios but as you know many people are worried about a second wave of systemic crisis. either because of commercial real estate or the value of the dollar.

GEITHNER: We're not going to have any (garble) wave of the financial crisis. We're going to do what's necessary to prevent that. We cannot afford to let the country live again with the risk that we're going to have another series of events like we had last year.

That's not something that's acceptable. And we will prevent that. We will do what is necessary to prevent that. And that is completely within our capacity to prevent.

And there you have it - confidence, as they say, is quite high. But, those with lingering doubts about the durability of the current economic rebound may want to set a mid-2010 reminder in their calender to have a look back at the events of this day to see how well Geithner's prediction has stood the test of time, that is, if he still has a job.