Former Obama era Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has found a new job in ripping off poor people for a profit. Ring of Fire’s Mike Papantonio and Farron Cousins discuss this.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: Former Obama era, treasury secretary, Tim Geithner has found a new job. His job, no surprise is ripping off poor people for a profit. Well, we’ve always known this about Geithner. He comes up through the, you know, he comes up through the ranks of Bill Clinton. You know, he’s bill Clinton’s boy. I can’t count the number of pictures with big Bill and his, his, his arm around his little Tim Geithner. And so all of a sudden we learn exactly what we knew about the guy. He was all about Wall Street at the time, the entire time he was working with Obama, at the time, entire time he’s working with Clinton and now he has this job. And the job is to figure out how we can extract as much money as possible from poor people. With, it’s, it’s basically a weekend lending kind of program, isn’t it?
Farron Cousins: It is. This Mariner Finance that he’s running is, it’s part of his Warburg Pincus group that he’s the president of. But what it is, Mariner Finance is essentially payday lenders in a suit and tie. Your average payday lender, if you see those buildings, they’re not very clean. They’re not very nice looking, but Mariner comes in and they’re dressed in suits. They look like a bank, but it’s the same horrible 30, 40, 50% interest rate. But unlike the payday lenders who usually top out at about a thousand dollars, they’ll give you a lot more than that. And then they will immediately sue you if you miss a payment. This is payday lending on steroids, but it’s gone under the radar because again, it’s in a suit and tie. They look like a Wall Street bank. They act like a Wall Street bank. They are a Wall Street bank. This is just a way for them to get in on the action and Tim Geithner, Obama’s guy, the guy that used to basically run the economy at the, he’s running this show.
Mike Papantonio: Okay. And we were back then… Do you remember we were beating on Geithner?
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: We were beating on Obama. We were beating on Clinton. We covered these stories way back then and we said, this is becoming the face of the democratic party. And we said back then, if they keep this up, they’re going to have nothing in common with America’s voters. Nothing. So now where are we? Now, it’s almost like they’ve given up. Okay, well we’re, we’re gonna be, we’re gonna, we’re, we’re gonna be who we’ve always been. So Tim Geithner goes to work with these thugs. They are corporate thugs. They don’t look like thugs. They don’t, you know, they say, well, you know, if you’re in a hoodie, that’s a thug. But we’re in a, we’re in a suit. We’re not thugs. Tim Geithner is a thug and has always been a thug. He’s always been on the side of Wall Street, always from day one. And it’s like every time you talked about him, you remember the emails we used to get. How dare you talk about little Tim Geithner? Who was the other guy? Geithner and…
Farron Cousins: Summers.
Mike Papantonio: Summers. Yeah. Okay. So Geithner and Summers were like twiddly dee and twiddly dumb working for Wall Street. Summers is working for Wall Street now. There’s no surprises here, man. But you know what, I guess what’s agonizing to me is when we used to talk about this, they’d say, oh no, you’re making this guy look worse than he is.
Farron Cousins: And we have to, and even though, even though we know he’s bad, you still have to, you have to be positive.
Mike Papantonio: Because he’s a democrat.
Farron Cousins: Because he’s, Obama’s guy.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: We got those messages constantly. That is not an exaggeration. People would tell us, yes, everything you’re saying is true, but stop saying it because it makes him look bad.
Mike Papantonio: Leave the democratic party or get it straight. That’s my message. Leave the damn party or get it straight. Right now, unfortunately, between Republican Democrat, it’s slightly the best selection, but it ain’t much of a selection. They’re not there, there’s no differences here. This guy’s much a Republican as he was back when he was with the Obama administration.
Farron Cousins: Right. And, you know, one of the exceptionally ugly things that this Mariner Finance is doing under Tim Geithner’s leadership is they’re actually openly soliciting people to come in and take out these massively inflated loans. And that is something, even the payday lenders don’t do. This should be criminal.
Mike Papantonio: Right now, there are trillions of dollars in home equity. Okay, now follow this. There are trillions of dollars sitting out there in home equity, just like we saw in 2008. This kind of Tim Geithner predator, they’re that money, they are after that money and they’re going to figure out a way to do it.
