MONEY MAKER

Obama Treasury Secretary Linked to Accused Predatory Lender

Timothy Geithner is president of a private equity firm that owns a company doling out high-interest loans.

Timothy Geithner, who served as Treasury Secretary during the Obama administration, is now president of a private equity fund that manages a company that has been accused of predatory lending practices, The Washington Post. The newspaper reports that Mariner Finance, which is “owned and managed” by New York firm Warburg Pincus, offers poor Americans high-interest loans by sending them checks in the mail. Customers who can’t repay the loans have been sued for the money they owe, plus interest, processing fees, and legal fees—sometimes within months of the checks being cashed. The “consumer installment loans” that Mariner markets through mailed-out checks encourage recipients to accept the loan “on an impulse” with interest rates as high as 36 percent. Geithner, who infamously blamed $34,000 worth of unpaid taxes on his use of the software TurboTax, previously called for states to police predatory lenders.