" 'I don't think our government should set caps on compensation,' Geithner told Newsweek's John Meacham during a live interview at the National Press Club. But Geithner acknowledged that pay structures on Wall Street contributed to the financial collapse.

" 'You had a crisis magnified by the fact people were paid to take a certain amount of risks,' Geithner said. He suggested possible measures that could rein-in excessive risk-taking, such as giving shareholders a 'say on pay' vote and increasing disclosure requirements.

"Geithner denied that the Treasury is sputtering in its lead role in the economic recovery and pointed to gains in the stock market as proof of the effectiveness of his policies.

"One of the very impressive people is Neal Wolin, whose nomination to Geithner's side is moving through the Senate. Wolin, before heading up the lobby shop at Hartford Financial Services Group, helped write the deregulation bill partially credited with causing the economy's current collapse."

[More about the latter in two of my postings, here and here.]

"Roll Call has an update in the increasingly intense war of words between rank-and-file Democrats in Congress who ran and won promising fair trade reform, and White House officials who may force Congress to vote on the Bush-negotiated, NAFTA-style Panama Free Trade Agreement:

'An increasingly agitated faction of Democrats is warning party leaders of ugly economic and political consequences if they try to move the Panama agreement.

'Not only will it hurt the economy, critics say, but action on a Bush-negotiated trade deal endangers freshman Democrats in 2010 since many ran on a trade reform agenda. In addition, critics say, it doesn’t bode well for Obama to anger a bloc of Democrats early on when he needs their support for his ambitious domestic agenda.

'I’m getting really pissed off,' said House Rules Chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D)...

'Rep. Mike Michaud (D-Maine), co- chairman of the House Trade Working Group, singled out House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) in his criticism of his party leaders’ desire to advance the Panama deal.

'As a Democratic leader, I don’t think it’s helpful to vulnerable Members to ask them to support a Bush-negotiated trade deal,' Michaud said. 'As a Democratic leader, [Hoyer] should not be encouraging the White House to move forward on this.'

'Panama itself “is not a big deal,” said one aide to a House Democrat opposed to the agreement. “It’s an opportunity to re-evaluate our cookie-cutter trade deals and then use that as a framework...Panama sets the course for what future agreements look like.'

"To ratchet up pressure, some of the most senior fair traders in the Democratic caucus are threatening to use their positions to block the trade pact from moving through the House. Specifically, "Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), one of the Members who attended the USTR meeting, said Slaughter repeatedly reminded USTR officials that she chairs the powerful Rules Committee" and that Slaughter "made it very clear that she didn’t intend to move any of those bills."

"This is what the Make Him Do It Dynamic looks like in legislative practice - fair traders using their leverage to pass and stop bills in Congress to force the White House to respect President Obama's campaign promises. In this case, the administration is being forced to slowly but surely acknowledge - and potentially champion - fair traders' demands for major trade policy reforms, with the Panama trade deal serving as the first vehicle for such changes. As I noted before, such change moves at a glacial pace, but it is moving."

And Exhibit C from Robert Reich: "But now the Medicare-like option is being taken off the table. Insurance and drug companies have thrown their weight around the Senate. And, sadly, the White House -- eager to get a bill enacted in 2009 rather than risk it during the mid-term election year of 2010 -- is signaling it's open to other approaches. What other approaches? One would create a public insurance plan run by multiple regional third-party administrators. In other words, the putative "public plan" would be broken into little pieces, none of which could exert much bargaining leverage on Big Pharma and Big Insurance. These pieces would also be so decentralized that the drug companies and private insurers could easily bully (or bribe) regional third-party administrators.

"Another approach now being considered in the Senate would have states create their own insurance plans. That's even worse: Big Pharma and Big Insurance are used to buying off state legislators and officials. They'd just continue their current practices.

"A third option is to create a public plan that pays for itself and, according to the office of Senator Charles Schumer, who came up with it, "adheres to private-insurance rules." But adhering to private insurance rules is exactly what the public plan is not supposed to do. How can it possibly discipline private insurers and get good deals from drug companies and medical providers if it adheres to the same rules that private insurers have wangled?

"...And Democrats are now giving away the store. As things are now going, we'll end up with a universal health-care bill this year that politicians, including our President, will claim as a big step forward when it's really a step sideways."