Business

GEITHNER LEADS RESCUE TEAM

He’s no household name just yet, but financial brainiac Tim Geithner could emerge as the economy’s new superstar savior if his desperate gamble to rescue Wall Street works.

As president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank – the most important bank of the Fed – Geithner has already quietly quarterbacked and advised on the three major offenses this year to keep the financial system from seizing up.

They included killing off Bear Stearns, Uncle Sam’s seizing of mortgage misfits Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and taking control of tottering insurance giant AIG for a bailout deal.

Geithner, 47, is no stranger to financial rescues.

Exactly a decade ago, he was Uncle Sam’s golden-boy emissary sent into the stormy center of what was then the world’s worst financial crisis – the Asian economic meltdown that helped trigger worldwide recession.

Just 36 at the time, he’d been raised in Asia and knew the cultures so intimately he scored successes and won confidences that other diplomats couldn’t match.

Geithner earned widespread plaudits for pulling together the quarreling Asian finance ministers into a $200 billion rescue of their economies, and went to bat often before a cranky Congress to try and sell the package.

After graduating from Dartmouth, he was recruited by Henry Kissinger to work in his global consulting firm and became a career civil servant in 1988 with the Treasury Department.

He rose quickly through the ranks – serving three administrations as a leading expert in global finance and troubleshooting policy. President Clinton made the low-key official his top globe-trotting diplomat in 1999.

After stints at the International Monetary Fund and leading think tanks such as the RAND Corp, he took the president’s post at the Fed’s New York bank.

“Timothy Geithner tells it like it is (and) seems unafraid to admit what he doesn’t know, and appears to recognize the wisdom of the old adage: forewarned is forearmed,” said veteran Wall Street trader Michael Panzner.

paul.tharp@nypost.com