RUSH: Here’s Timmy Geithner this afternoon on CNBC’s Power Lunch. They played on CNBC a sound bite from senior economics reporter Steve Liesman and his interview with Tim Geithner, and Liesman said, ‘Treasury is issuing over time and not so much time trillions of dollars of debt. The Fed’s buying $300 billion of Treasuries. Why is this not the dreaded concept of monetizing the debt which so many economists would warn against?’
GEITHNER: There’s no risk of that in the United States because, again, we have a strong independent central bank whose obligation under the law is not just to achieve maximum sustainable growth but to keep inflation low and stable over time. And I know the chairman is completely committed to that.
RUSH: Okay. So there’s Geithner saying no, no, there’s no risk of that in the United States, no risk of monetizing the debt. We have strong independent central bank. Obligations under the law. So Rick Santelli, he of tea party fame, responded to Geithner with this.
SANTELLI: Are we monetizing? And his answer was no, we have a strong independent central bank. Now, the latter may be true, but it certainly isn’t an answer to the question. And I’d like feedback everybody, that quantitative easing can’t exist without the monetization process. We issue debt, we print the money to buy it. That is monetizing. I can’t believe that was his answer. It’s pretty disingenuous. If that’s the Treasury Secretary in charge of all this activity and that was his answer, it makes me nervous. Blatantly saying they’re not monetizing when the March statement for the first time ever expressed quantitative easing and put it on the map, I just think that that’s the wrong answer. He’s not telling the truth!
RUSH: Well, there it is on CNBC, Rick Santelli, who they reined in once before, has somehow broken free and wandered off the reservation and just accused Little Timmy of lying. And, of course, Santelli is right; we are monetizing the debt. What monetizing the debt is, we issue debt, we sell Treasuries. We do this or that. Then we print money to buy it ourselves. They have these auctions, Treasury auctions, they’re not raising as much money as they are projected to raise, we sell Treasuries and monetizing the debt as we issue the debt, meaning, okay, we’ve made a decision to spend $12 trillion we don’t have. So that $12 trillion of debt, well, you have to monetize it, I mean the $12 trillion has to be something. So you print the money. Now, we’re not going to print all $12 trillion; we’re going to print it as we need it. That’s why there’s still time to stop this with elections in 2010 and 2012. Right now the deficit probably this year, two trillion, but with all this other stuff coming up it will be more like four. So you print the money to monetize the debt. Therefore it’s inflationary. The ChiComs are dead right about this and they’re scared to death that we’re monetizing our own debt. You should be, too. And Geithner over there telling the Chinese we’re not doing that, that’s just absolutely absurd. And they’re laughing at him in these meetings.