Geithner who is

Geithner was appointed the ninth president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on November 17, Geithner was born in Brooklyn, New York.

In , Mr. Geithner joined the Department of the Treasury where he worked in three administrations for five secretaries of the Treasury in a variety of positions. As president of the New York Fed, Geithner was directly involved in many pivotal policymaking decisions made during the financial crisis that started in After the US Senate confirmed his nomination, he took the oath of office on January 26, He returned to New York in and joined the Council on Foreign Relations as a distinguished fellow.

William J. McDonough President. William C. Dudley President. Alan Greenspan Chairman. Others feared the plan favoured Wall Street while leaving taxpayers on the hook. As widely criticised as he was, for a while it looked as though Mr Geithner's time in the job was over before it had even begun.

Calls for his resignation quickly grew, especially after word leaked that Mr Geithner had fought against imposing limits on executive pay for companies receiving government aid. That decision left the administration powerless when bailed-out firms Merrill Lynch and AIG decided to pay out big bonuses, causing a huge public outcry.

Controversial or not, experts say the Financial Stability Plan has done its job. Mr Zandi says the stress tests were vital to restoring public confidence, getting the banks lending to each other, and ultimately lending to consumers.

Mr Whalen says that not much has changed from in the financial system. Mr Geithner has struggled with the perception that he is not only the man who saved Wall Street, but he is also a product of Wall Street. Before becoming President Obama's point man on the economy, he was president of the New York Federal Reserve - a post he took up in late His role meant he had a front row seat at many of the important meetings that took place when the financial crisis broke.

In fact, Mr Geithner is widely credited for the rescue and sale of the investment bank Bear Stearns to JP Morgan, and he supported the decision to rescue the American Insurance Group from bankruptcy.

Mr Geithner, who was a protege of Bill Clinton's former treasury secretaries Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, worked in the international section. While there he helped craft the government's response to various global financial crises at the time. He learnt an invaluable lesson there, one that would become his guiding principle at Treasury - that to act too slowly may prove more costly.

While that is true for the banks, having moved quickly to save them, he scores a lower grade when it comes to helping the housing market and re-igniting the jobs market. In his tell-all book Bailout, the former Tarp head wrote: "There was never the same ferocity in dealing with the housing crisis as there was dealing with the failing banks.

To be fair to Mr Geithner, more than half of the Tarp money was already spent when the Obama administration took office and the big banks have since repaid US taxpayers for the emergency loan with interest. Still, it may have a bearing on how Mr Obama's treasury secretary is remembered. Ultimately, Mr Geithner's legacy may be as the man who won the financial crisis but lost the economic recovery.