# Goldman exec for Treasury **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 30, 2016, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goldman-exec-for-treasury/773428 "2016-11-30T00:48:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goldman-exec-for-treasury/773428/1 "2016-11-30T00:48:04Z")
[The swamp-draining continues:](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/trump-to-name-financier-steve-mnuchin-to-treasurysources-say/2016/11/29/172e38ca-b10a-11e6-8616-52b15787add0_story.html?utm_term=.8a4af6e1c766)☹ > [@](#): > > President-elect Donald Trump is planning to name investor and former Goldman Sachs executive Steven Mnuchin as Treasury Secretary, opting for an industry insider with no government experience to helm the agency in charge of the nation’s finances, according to people familiar with the matter. > > Mnuchin joined Trump’s whirlwind campaign in May as finance chairman, despite the fact that he has never worked in politics and that he donated to Democrats in the past. He quickly earned Trump’s trust as he worked closely with the Republican National Committee to raise substantial amounts of money in a short period of time. On the policy front, he was instrumental in crafting the details of Trump’s proposal to overhaul the tax code. Make America Great Again. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goldman-exec-for-treasury/773428/2 "2016-11-30T05:41:12Z")
I can’t remember who joked about Goldman Sachs having sleeper cells in the government, but it seems about right. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Little\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Pig)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goldman-exec-for-treasury/773428/3 "2016-11-30T05:46:16Z")
Do ever get the feeling that you’ve just been cheated? ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goldman-exec-for-treasury/773428/4 "2016-11-30T07:27:34Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > [The swamp-draining continues:](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/trump-to-name-financier-steve-mnuchin-to-treasurysources-say/2016/11/29/172e38ca-b10a-11e6-8616-52b15787add0_story.html?utm_term=.8a4af6e1c766) No, you just don’t get it. If someone who was formerly in the government starts working for Goldman Sachs to lobby on the company’s behalf, that’s unacceptable. But if you take a GS executive and just put them in the government to implement their preferred policies directly, that’s perfectly fine. I’ve said it before, Donald Trump isn’t going to remove the influence of money on public policy, he’s just cutting out the middleman. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goldman-exec-for-treasury/773428/5 "2016-11-30T13:36:18Z")
Yessiree, it was such a BIG deal that Hillary got paid to speak to these people. What an outrage that was! Far better to just hand them the keys to the treasury. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goldman-exec-for-treasury/773428/6 "2016-11-30T15:35:17Z")
I will say that the Treasury Secretaries that we have gotten from Goldman haven’t been the worst bunch. Fowler, Rubin, Paulson, and Summers have gone from GS to Sec Treasury, and none of them were anywhere near as bad as, say, Andrew Mellon (1921-1932) or the unfortunate John Carlisle (1893-1897), a man so disliked for how he ran the Treasury department that he was egged while giving a speech. In his hometown. And Paulson, for his handling of the 2008 financial crisis, might even be considered a “great” SecTreas. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goldman-exec-for-treasury/773428/7 "2016-11-30T15:41:38Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > I will say that the Treasury Secretaries that we have gotten from Goldman haven’t been the worst bunch. Oh, good. The larger point, which has been normalized away to nothingness, is that Trump could appoint first-rate people to every position while still choosing very conservative, liberal-terrorizing candidates. He hasn’t. He’s chosen fringers and loons and whack jobs and fourth-raters for every single slot; not people who will run those agencies Reeeeepublican style, but often barely know what the agency in fact _does_. People who are as clueless and filled with nonsense about that job as he is about the Presidency. So picking someone from the financial field who migh actually know what the Treasury Secretary is supposed to do and empowered to do, but is from the stinking bowels of the 2008 crash and its causes, is not exactly something to celebrate. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goldman-exec-for-treasury/773428/8 "2016-11-30T15:54:34Z")
I agree with the overall sentiment you expressed, and it is odd that Trump just nominated somebody whom he sued back in 2004, but just because the guy is from Goldman Sachs doesn’t mean he’s the devil incarnate, at least for this position. That’s all my point was. However, _this guy_… he sounds like another person getting an Administration job because it’s easier to deal with all those pesky lawsuits and potential criminal sanctions when you’re the one making the rules. You know, like his new boss, Donald Trump. > **[Steven Mnuchin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Mnuchin)** > > Steven Terner Mnuchin (/məˈnuːʃɪn/ mə-NOO-shin; born December 21, 1962) is an American investment banker and film producer who served as the 77th United States secretary of the treasury as part of the Cabinet of Donald Trump from 2017 to 2021. Serving for a full presidential term, Mnuchin was one of the few high-profile members of Trump's cabinet whom the president did not dismiss. > Mnuchin was born in New York City. Upon graduating from Yale University in 1985, Mnuchin joined the investment ba... [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kakistocracy](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kakistocracy)