What's in U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's wallet? Not much.

While testifying in front of a House Appropriations Subcommittee on Capitol Hill Thursday Geithner was shown a $50 Billion Zimbabwean bank note (rendered worthless by Zimbabwe's hyperinflation) by U.S. Representative John Culberson (R- TX) and asked if he had ever seen one himself. Geithner immediately pulled a piece of Zimbabwean currency out of his own pocket and showed it off to the committee. At the next break in the hearing I approached Geithner and asked how he happened to have a piece of foreign currency in his pocket. His response was "I often have some foreign currency in my wallet. Want to see?" He pulled a very thin and mostly empty wallet from his pocket.

Amongst many empty slots in the thin weathered leather wallet there could be seen three credit or debit cards with Visa and Mastercard logos (all inserted into the wallet upside down so that the card issuers could not be seen) and an old and yellowed looking identification card of indeterminate origin.

From inside the wallet Geithner extracted a small pile of receipts and paper including a New York City MTA farecard, pointing out that there were European Euros tucked amongst the paper.

Notably not seen in the U.S. Treasury Secretary's wallet? Any U.S. dollars.

- Photo Credits:  Jim Bourg/Reuters  (U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner puts a piece of foreign currency back after showing off the contents of his wallet to a photographer during a break in his congressional testimony in Washington, May 21, 2009.)

A trillion dollars is a million million dollars or 12 zeros after the one.

And that’s how much apparently every program costs to save the U.S. economy these days.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner outlined what he called “a new financial stability plan” to help restart the flow of credit, strengthen banks, and  “provide critical aid for homeowners and for small businesses.”

His proposal included a program in which the FDIC, the Federal Reserve, and the private sector would establish a fund, using government financing, to deal with bad assets weighing on financial firms.

“We believe this program should ultimately provide up to $1 trillion in financing capacity, but we plan to start it on a scale of about $500 billion, and we will expand it based on what works,” Geithner said.

Another piece of his plan would commit up to $1 trillion (there’s that number again) to support consumer and business lending with the Treasury and Federal Reserve working together to “kick-start the secondary lending markets.”

All that is separate from the economic stimulus legislation being fought over on Capitol Hill right now,  which is running about $800 billion (add $200 billion and that’s another trillion). 

Geithner, who came to the job with a bit of a tax issue in his past, showed that he was well aware of the math for his proposed economic rescue programs.

“Now, many of the programs I’ve discussed involve very large numbers,” he said.

And again.  “But I want to be candid:  This strategy will cost money, it will involve risk, and it will take time.”

“But as costly as this effort may be, we know that the cost of a complete collapse of our financial system would be incalculable for families and for businesses and for our nation,” he said.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young (Geithner unveils financial rescue plan)

WASHINGTON - TARP, the four-letter acronym for a $700 billion government bailout, has lost its original definition and needs a new name.

Even the White House on Tuesday acknowledged that TARP was perhaps not the most accurate portrayal of the changing intent of the financial rescue package.

After all, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson last week said the Troubled Assets Relief Program would not be used for troubled asset relief but rather to shore up financial firms.

“Shouldn’t we stop calling it TARP, since it’s not really any more a troubled asset relief program?” a reporter asked at the daily White House briefing.

“Yes, I have thought the same myself,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

“I don’t know what we could call it. I also call it the rescue package. It’s not a bad point,” she conceded.

Paulson said he was backing away from using the bailout fund for buying troubled mortgage assets and now instead favored using the money to inject capital into financial institutions.

Hmmmm… Perhaps it is time for a new name.

Some off-the-cuff suggestions include CYA for Cover Your Assets, ILL for Inject Lender Liquidity, EWAPOM for Everyone Wants A Piece Of Me, or WHW for Whatever Hank Wants.

But we’d like to open this up to suggestions from our readers. Let’s hear from you.