After Long Career Bailing Out Big Banks, Obama Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner Now Runs Predatory Fi

[LiberalArkie]

After Long Career Bailing Out Big Banks, Obama Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner Now Runs Predatory Firm That Exploits the Poor for Profit

By Jake Johnson / Common Dreams

After a lengthy government career defined by his central role in bailing out predatory Wall Street banks as former President Barack Obama's Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner appears to have found his true calling in the private sector, where he now heads a large financial institution that exploits the economic struggles of poor Americans for profit.

As president of Warburg Pincus—a major New York private equity firm—Geithner helps manage a lucrative predatory lending outfit called Mariner Finance, which mass-mails loan checks to low-income Americans, hides exorbitant interest rates in the fine print, and quickly sues those who fail to repay the loan and interest in time, according to a detailed Washington Post report published late Sunday.

"It's basically a way of monetizing poor people," John Lafferty, who worked as a manager trainee at a Mariner Finance branch in Nashville, told the Post. "Maybe at the beginning, people thought these loans could help people pay their electric bill. But it has become a cash cow."

Part of the burgeoning "consumer installment" industry—which consists of firms that offer slightly larger loans than payday lenders—Mariner Finance has hundreds of thousands of customers who, often in desparation, use the loans to cover soaring medical costs, home repairs, and other urgent expenses.

Snip

https://www.alternet.org/after-long-career-bailing-out-big-banks-obama-treasury-secretary-tim-geithner-now-runs-predatory

[Me.]

1. We All Tried To Say He Was Not All That

when PBO picked him, now he shows his true self

[Demsrule86]

2. You can't resist taking a shot at President Obama even now.

I long for those days when we didn't have Trump. And I don't give to fucks what Geithner is doing.

[shanny]

5. Ever wonder why we have tRump?

1000 lost state leg seats, 2/3 of the governorships, House, Senate and WH losses didn't happen overnight. That pig pucker Geithner is part of it.

[Demsrule86]

6. I know why we have Trump...and the message voting by the whiners that cost us

the house in 10 and more of the same in 12...the losses are the result of not supporting Democrats. What did those message voters give us in 10? A gerrymander which prevented us from retaking the house in 12 even though we had more votes. Pres. Obama did a fine job and people had unreasonable expectations and trashed him even here. Such folks totally blew our chances to get progressive legislation. I find such voters despicable.

I would be ashamed to have been part of a group that kneecapped President Obama and made us play defense for six year and cost us a SCOTUS pick...not accusing you of doing this. But those who attacked president Obama and then refused to vote for the Democratic candidate for president own it all...baby jails, the courts, DACA...the coming economic crash.

I find your post both incorrect and offensive. (another dig at Pres. Obama)Geithner played no role in our losses...those voters who expect to have everything their way are the culprits. Vote Democratic always or we all pay a terrible price...again not accusing you. However, I have no use for message voters or anyone who didn't vote for the only person who could stop Trump...Hillary Clinton.

[shanny]

7. Truth is inconvenient.

Doing NOTHING about the banksters hurt us badly. eom

[NCTraveler]

9. We didn't do "nothing" about the banksters.

That is a patently false statement by you. Not only did we do something, it was recently rolled back by the Trump administration and people right here were furious about Trump rolling them back. Why were we so upset if it was "nothing".

Now move the goal posts and say "no, we did nothing in this one area". Of course we did other things.

This is the type of deception that is killing us.

That is your inconvenient truth. You claim nothing was done when we know for a fact that you are peddling falsehoods.

[shanny]

11. So sorry. I meant to say we didn't do anything TO the banksters

whose casino play crashed the global economy. My bad. No, we propped them up, paid them off, "foamed the runway," qualitatively eased them into solvency and made the banks bigger than ever. Yea, us!
In my opinion that failure to stick it to those assholes helped tank enthusiasm in 2010. It certainly didn't do anything for mine, although I continued to show up; nevertheless, some didn't.

[NCTraveler]

16. There go the goalposts I mentioned.

Followed up by additional inaccurate information.

[shanny]

17. Nope. We did nothing about the banksters.

We did do something about the banks. In my view, not enough, and now, as you pointed out, all but repealed. ymmv

as for "misinformation" I will let someone far more knowledgeable speak for me:

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/secrets-and-lies-of-the-bailout-113270/

g'night

[Demsrule86]

15. +1000

[Cha]

21. Thank You for pointing out

what that type of deception did and is doing, NCT.

The Stupid brainwashed LIES.

[Demsrule86]

10. No it didn't... not a voting issue in 10 or 14...single payer in 10 and just a general

"Obama is not a progressive" bullshit message in 14. You can go back and read the posts even here. And any who claim to be progressive who stabbed a Democratic president who could have accomplished great things in the back are not worth even discussing...not saying you.

[shanny]

12. Despite Obama's personal popularity

he didn't get as many votes in 2012 as in 2008. And in 2016 something like 8 million Obama voters went to tRump. I think preserving the status quo was not what they hoped for.

[zipplewrath]

13. It's all in the optics

Obama was stuck executing TARP. Unfortunately, that didn't do much for most of the people. He tried "shovel ready", that didn't pan out (he said once that they discovered there was no such thing). They did several attempts at mortgage assistance programs, but the fiscal conservatives gutted the most effective features of it so it helped very few and hardly any of the most needy. His stimulus was too small by half, mostly because Summers wouldn't consider anything larger, and then the fiscal conservatives gutted some of the more effective features of that as well.

In the mean time, the banks were getting saved and using the money to pay bonuses and buy corporate aircraft. Stock markets started to recover, which effected less than half the population, and virtually none of the worst off. Unemployment went through the roof, in a large degree because the states laid off so many government workers (the fiscal conservatives gutted the "aid to local governments" feature, some times called "revenue sharing).

So the optics were that the rich were getting richer, and the poor were losing their houses and jobs. And for about 6 years that wasn't all that far from the truth. It didn't help that the whole "robo-signing scandal" couldn't find anyone to put in an orange jumpsuit. So after 8 years, the song that the blue collar was getting screwed was going to sell well. The fact that by the last year or so the blue collar was actually starting to see some mild wage gains and that unemployment was bottoming out didn't really help in time. And the democrats were in a position of trying to sell the concept that they'd somehow make it better, instead of being able to suggest that they already had.

And Geithner and Summers never were good politicians and didn't really work the optics at all. They somehow thought that saving Wall Street would help on Main Street. It was about as tone deaf as it comes.

[Demsrule86]

14. He wasn't popular in 10...it was slipping and in 14, he had the lowest poll numbers of his

presidency. And eight million Obama voters did not go for Trump...as for status quo...I long for status quo. It is not true that people everywhere care about Geithner or are deeply progressive... it just isn't... this is a center left country and if we don't get Trump out it will move further to the right like after Regan.

You assume like many that people agree with you...some may but not enough. And if voters kneecap a president in the second year of his presidency because he can't do the impossible (get single payer) than status quo is better than such voters deserve. We can't pass legislation if we lose the House. So if/ when we get back in power...maybe those that squandered it in 10 by having a pout and not voting for Democrats will have learned their lesson...sure had't in 16.

[Cha]

22. Yeah, they aren't "progressive".. they're

regressive. Sitting home in 2010 and 2014 to teach President Obama a lesson.. when he could have accomplished even MORE with a Dem Congress.

[Cha]

19. TRUTH is Inconvenitent.. Get with the Program.

[LanternWaste]

8. That's a wonderful example of the fallacy, post hoc ergo prompter hoc

But then again, I realize America has reduced itself to a nation of bumper stickers in place of critical thought.... something seemingly fewer and fewer ever "wonder about..."

[Cha]

18. We have FUCKING trump because of the russians and their

Fucking enablers like Fucking LIARS stein and sarandOn.. and the REST of the SHITE like the M$$M.. and Voter Suppression.

Those 1000 seats that keep getting thrown up are because of HATE PROPAGANDA and ASSHOLES SITTING HOME TO TEACH President Obama A LESSON.

[JI7]

23. Certain types need to make excuses for those that voted for the bigoted trash trump

We are supposed to believe the bullshit that people that voted trump are the progressives who care another economic fairness.

It's a pattern of attacking Democrats while making excuses for trum trump trash.

[Cha]

20. I don't give a good GD FUCK what Geithner

is doing, either.

[exboyfil]

3. I am thinking of a word that rhymes with bore

[shanny]

4. Totally shocked that the "foam the runway" guy is revealed as a predator.

[theaocp]

24. Please read. n/t