Obama's Treasury Secretary A Cursing, Skateboarding "Hipster-Wonk"

The Economist profiles Barack Obama's Treasury Secretary pick, who they approvingly describe as a "seasoned crisis manager":

Mr Geithner looks a lot younger than his 47 years (though not as young as he did before the crisis began). He skateboards and snowboards and exudes a sort of hipster-wonkiness, using "way" as a synonym for "very" as in "way consequential" and occasionally underlining his point with the word "fuck". In temperament he seems similar to Mr Obama: he is suspicious of ideology, questions received wisdom, likes a competition of ideas and is keenly aware of how uncertain the world is.

...

He is a quick learner: within a year of joining the New York Fed he could debate the intricacies of monetary policy with academic experts. But he will join an Administration rapidly filling up with heavyweights on economic policy, not least of them Mr Summers. Indeed, one of the big questions of the new team that Mr Obama is expected to unveil on Monday is just how Mr Summers, a brilliant but intimidating and sometimes abrasive figure, will fit in.

Read the whole thing.

Comments

[darthdarcy]

Follow the money, will he continue to funnel billions to the crooks and swindlers on Wall St. and Financial services abyss or serve the people reset the millions mortgages to avert foreclosures so as to stabilize the housing market and avert a housing crisis, or save the essential auto industry and avoid a depression­...

There has almost never been such a clear and easy means to assess this appointment by just, following the money, the $350 billion Paulson hasn't already squandered and plundered from our Treasury..­.

[Chubbster]

"he continue to funnel billions to the crooks and swindlers on Wall St." Stop ranting will you? Your perceptions of what happened are warped. 99% of Wall Street is moral and upstanding, hardworking and honest. 1% were greedy-gre­edy-greedy and caused this mess. Bush exercised absolutely no oversite to the debt-leverage cycle, he didn't shoot down the Masters of the Universe. It only took about 10 people like these to bring down the entire country of Iceland.
The use of the highly charged words "crooks and swindlers" is inaccurate and a huge generalization.

[darthdarcy]

I worked on Wall St. are you kidding me, they are the biggest bunch of thieves and swindlers all they do is spin Air Castles and sell bad paper...

99% are moral you must be joking, I remember the street was full of coke dealers in the 80's when I was there and they did huge business..­.!

[GrkAm]

Why not? He's smart and can do the job, so bring him on! We need to clean house in government and this a great way to do it.

[drkazmd65]

Yeah,... it's not like the old white guy Boomers or older that have been running our Treasury and managing monetary policy for the last couple of decades did a 'bang-up' job for us.

Way cool choice President-elect Obama!

[richardmcnoggin]

6 months from now people will be begging for the real adults to come back into leadership including the presidency.

[JonathanStuartLeibowitz]

Could you spell out what you mean by real adults...?

[ZimboChick]

waaaaaaaaa­aaaaaaaaaa­ahhhhhhhhh­hh
waaaaaaaaa­aahhhhhhhh­h

do stop the whining.

[Big0725]

That's what we voted for on Nov. 4 loser!

Now go sit down and gum your bowl of Wheatina and let the smart, young folks show you how it's done.

[wedgie]

weenie.

[firewmn]

nuff said

[brooklyncitizen]

Yeah...lik­e we had "real adults" before Obama....

[hawaiiguy61]

To think that I could be snowboarding next to one of the most powerful figures in washington is definitely change!

Who are these people and where did they hide the politicians?

[ZimboChick]

lol - now I can use that term AWESOME! way!

[NMO14]

Are you getting a tingle up your leg? Hmmmm.

[DannyEastVillage]

i think he's cute.

[leftoflennon]

He is soo sweet lookin

[KwaiChangCaine]

Sk8punk Fed--Waay Kewl, Dude....WA­Y! :)

[BowlingForRevenge]

Hipster Wonk?

I'm down with that Daddy O

Obama & Co. bring cool to DC since 2008

[Phoebe917]

i like that; "Daddy O". that is soooo "tight" !!!

[Shrinath]

Totally!!!! "Daddy O" seems kewl!!

[skatephotog]

Geithner is going to shred!

[robbor]

Mr Geithner - Way Cool!

[RockySoldier]

sounds good to me. let's get this thing done. our kids and grandkids will thank us.

[truegreen]

Geithner and Obama seem to have the same temperament.

[jingles32]

Hip, cool, athletic; intelligent, wonkish, world traveled, (mulit-lingual) and oh so easy on the eyes to boot...and of my generation! Sounds good to me!

[canucklivinginUSA]

Step away from my man. I mean it

[NMO14]

Easy on the eyes? BARF!
Cool? GAG!
Intelligent? Yeah, so? He better be!
Wonkish? Hell no, NOT AGAIN!
World traveled? WHATEVER!
Multi-lingual? My butcher is multilingual!

[roshni]

Excellent - I like the description so far. Good to have fresh blood and new ideas.

[karinova]

He's hip, he's cool, he's 47!

"Hey, wanna smoke a doobie with your SecTreas? No? Suit yourself."

[trudem2]

How refreshing after Paulsen. Watching the man on C-Span caused me the most intense distress. Such lack of clarity, focus, details and direction .....

"My God, he doesn't know what he's doing" I thought.

And that crooked pinky finger -- it was the last staw!

[DannyEastVillage]

on the other hand, everything you remark on about Paulsen makes him a perfect fit for the outgoing administration, dontcha think...

[IndyReader]

Hey, I've got a crooked pinky finger! NTTAWWT! :-)

[canucklivinginUSA]

Paulson seriously gives me nightmare. Reminds me of Lex Luthor

[NMO14]

I loathe Paulson...­he's symptomatic of all that is wrong with the Bush era, but this guy has to step up to the plate and show that he is more than some puckish skateboarder.