US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is considering stepping down later this year, but will not make a decision until contentious negotiations over the US debt ceiling are completed, people familiar with his thinking said on Thursday.
Geithner said he would remain in his Department of the Treasury post “for the foreseeable future” and sidestepped a direct question about his career plans after a flurry of media reports that he was mulling leaving the administration of US President Barack Obama.
“I’ve only worked in public service. I live for this work. It’s the only thing I’ve ever done, I believe in it,” Geithner said. “We have a lot of challenges as a country, and I’m going to be doing it for the foreseeable future.”
Geithner is the last senior member of Obama’s original economic team. He has faced intense criticism, including at times calls for his resignation, but has prevailed to win a reputation as a steady hand amid turbulent times.
“We hate to say it but this looks like the A-Team is resigning -without anyone credible coming off the bench to win the game,” said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi in New York.
Bloomberg News, which first reported Geithner’s possible departure, cited unnamed sources as saying that family considerations were among the factors Geithner was weighing. ABC News reported that there “are far too many caveats” to say Geithner will definitely depart.
Obama would face a tough choice in replacing him at the Treasury, and any successor could face a grueling and long quest to win the US Senate’s needed confirmation.
Among those Obama could consider are General Electric chief Jeff Immelt, who already heads a council that advises the White House, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, or JPMorgan Chase and Co chairman and chief executive Jamie Dimon.
A successor would face key challenges from trying to spur a slow-growing economy to dealing with potential tax-code reform and maintaining stable relations with China.
Politics could weigh on Geithner’s decision. If he stays past late summer or fall, he could feel an obligation to stick with Obama through what could be a difficult campaign for reelection next year.
A person familiar with Geithner’s thinking said the Treasury secretary realized he might have a window to potentially depart after a deal to raise the debt limit and reduce US deficits is reached.
“People are a little worried or interested because I have a family, my son’s going back to New York to finish high school and I’m going to be commuting for awhile,” Geithner said at the conference in Chicago.
Geithner can point to solid accomplishments in his two-and-a-half years at Treasury: pushing through stress tests that cleared the way for banks to raise billions of dollars in new capital, aiding passage of the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory overhaul and helping win more influence for emerging markets including China in global councils like the IMF.
Geithner, 49, led the New York Federal Reserve Bank before joining the Obama administration, where he played a lead role in combating the 2007 to 2009 financial crisis. He continued efforts to guide the economy back to health at Treasury.
Chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers Austan Goolsbee, who is leaving next month, told CNBC that news of Geithner’s potential departure was “a bit of a surprise.”
“I know his overwhelming focus is to get this debt ceiling and deficit reduction worked out,” Goolsbee said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”