Wednesday, October 29, 2014 | 5:30 PM to 7:00 PM
As President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York between 2003 and 2009 and then Treasury Secretary for the duration of President Barack Obama’s first term, Timothy F. Geithner shaped the American response to the global financial crisis. He was at the center of Fed policy as the crisis unfolded, and he was a principal architect of the Obama Administration’s strategy to avert economic collapse and to reform the financial system.
In the face of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, Geithner worked closely with Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, and with President Obama and his economic team to develop and execute a plan to arrest the collapse of the economy and restore economic growth, to recapitalize and restructure the financial system, and to restore access to capital and credit for businesses and individuals. Geithner and his teams at the Treasury and the Fed helped lead a crisis response that included investments, guarantees, and a variety of credit programs with peak commitments of $7 trillion. As of early 2014, the expected return on those programs totaled more than $150 billion (relative to common estimates in early 2009 of losses of $1 to 2 trillion).
Secretary Geithner led President Obama’s efforts to restructure and reform the financial system, which resulted in the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. The law put in place important constraints on risk in the financial system and established new protections for investors and consumers, including the establishment of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
In a conversation with Charles Wait, former member of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's Board of Directors and a trustee of the Museum, Geithner will discuss his book, Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises, which he wrote as a distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
