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bain company
Time to Cash In: Geithner to Head Wall Street Private Equity Firm
Job destroying private-equity firms played a major role in the 2012 presidential campaign
Nov 16, 2013
Ex-US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, President Barack Obama's key economic adviser since 2009, is joining private-equity firm Warburg Pincus, according to a statement on Saturday.
Geithner, who has spent the last 26 years in 'public service', will become president at the Wall Street-based corporate buyout firm starting on March 1st, according to a press release today from Warburg Pincus.
When Geithner left his post with the Treasury Department in January 2013, Matt Taibbi told Democracy Now: "He's the architect of "too big to fail. When this all blows up -- and it's going to blow up, for sure, because things can't continue the way they are right now -- people are going to look back in history, and they're going to say, "Who was to blame for this?" And Timothy Geithner is going to be the guy who designed this entire system."
\u201cGeithner got at least $500k advance for his book https://t.co/8RxYj3rhnk gets $200K/speech https://t.co/6NgrTcyFN6 so he had to "cash in" w/PE\u201d— David Dayen (@David Dayen) 1384618400
\u201cWho said Obama isn't corrupt? Timothy Geithner Named President of NYC Private Equity Firm\nhttps://t.co/rF8GrlS8FI\u201d— Ted Rall, the Actual Political Cartoonist & Pundit (@Ted Rall, the Actual Political Cartoonist & Pundit) 1384624016
\u201cAs seen on @maxkeiser's FB page: Timmy Geithner has a new job! "Too bad it's not making license plates!!" https://t.co/KnlcTHkyYH\u201d— Stacy Herbert \ud83c\uddf8\ud83c\uddfb\ud83d\ude80 (@Stacy Herbert \ud83c\uddf8\ud83c\uddfb\ud83d\ude80) 1384619963
\u201cWhat a surprise Geithner is joining Warburg Pincus! Goldman would have been too obvious.\u201d— Doug Henwood (@Doug Henwood) 1384612297
Politicoreports:
Private-equity firms in the financial sector played a leading role in the 2012 presidential campaign, with Democrats criticizing Republican candidate Mitt Romney over deals involving his firm, Bain Capital, that led to layoffs at different companies.
For instance, in May 2012 the Obama campaign ran an ad concerning Bain's role in the struggles of American Pad and Paper that featured former employees of the company criticizing Romney.
Defenders of the industry argue it can help turn around struggling companies, but its critics, as the 2012 campaign showed, point to instances where these leveraged buyouts and the efforts to nurse a company back to health can often lead to large layoffs.
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Romney Economics: Job Loss and Bankruptcy at AmpadLearn more: https://www.romneyeconomics.com With American Pad & Paper (Ampad), Mitt Romney and his partners took a small ...
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Obama Appoints Bain & Co Consultant to Top Post
The 2012 Obama campaign went after Bain for outsourcing jobs, closing plants, devastating US communities
Sep 13, 2013
President Obama has appointed Jeff Zients as head of the National Economic Council. A former executive of Gov. Mitt Romney's Bain & Company investment firm--Zients worked at Bain & Co. from 1988 to 1990. Romney was running Bain Capital at the time, so the two did not work directly together.
Romney worked at Bain & Company, first from 1977-1984, and then again from 1991 and 1992, when he was the Bain & Company chief executive officer.
Bain Capital was heavily criticized by the 2012 Obama campaign as an 'outsourcing pioneer' responsible for closing plants, devastating U.S. communities, and even contributing to the deaths of disenfranchised workers.
Zients work at Bain was one of many lucrative positions at corporate management and media firms that allowed him to build a multimillion dollar fortune. He has worked as a close aid to Obama since 2009, serving twice as the president's acting budget director, among other positions. He will now ascend to head of the National Economic Council, replacing Gene Sperling, who says he is departing for personal reasons.
The appointment was leaked to the New York Times and reported by the paper Friday morning and formally announced by the White House later in the day. The article failed to mention Zients' former tenure at Bain.
Obama has already been slammed for ushering in corporate influence and pursuing policies that deepen poverty and unemployment for the vast majority, flipping on his campaign promises to stand up for the common person. Studies show that Obama has overseen the widest income gap between top 1 percent earners and everyone else since 1928--the year before markets crashed.
Obama heaped praise on the new appointee Friday, declaring, "Jeff has a sterling reputation as a business leader."
Yet, his glowing praise contrasts strongly with the picture he painted of Bain Capital during his 2012 campaign, which he repeatedly slammed as an uncaring corporation that outsourced jobs to China while cutting jobs and suppressing wages at home, running roughshod over people's lives to increase bottom-lines.
In one video, the Obama campaign suggests that Bain's role in closing a GST Steel plant in Kansas City contributed to the death of a former worker's wife because of his lost health insurance.
This is not the first time Obama has contradicted his campaign criticisms of Bain Capital. Obama has received over $182,000 in donations from the company, while the Democratic Party has received millions.
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