Geithner's main flaw so far is too much coddling of bank shareholders (including executives) and bondholders, who seem more important to protect than taxpayers, which is a fucking joke of a position. Those people knowingly took risks and demanded banks to do this distinguished mentally-challenged stuff to keep their quarterly profits from lagging behind those of their peers (and thus preventing having their stock raped), and now they've served up a big fat shit sandwich. Geithner should be cramming it into their mouths, not packing in a brownbag and handing it to the taxpayer.
Where was the board of directors during all this, when the company was taking tons of undue risk?
Ignoring it, so that the executives of the banks who are the board of directors at other companies will ignore their excesses, while fund managers that handle all of the actual stock voting/board selections go on posh retreats at company expense.
Big business capitalism as instantiated in the US is
broken. It's skewed to favor large businesses over small despite the latter being far better for communities and the citizenry and uses lobbyist influence to protect itself from real reform.