How Steven Mnuchin would deal with a financial crisis
Investment banker and Hollywood producer Steven Mnuchin confirmed this morning that he is the Trump transition team’s pick for U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. Mnuchin would join Henry Fowler, Bob Rubin, Larry Summers, and Hank Paulson as former Goldman Sachs people who assumed the role.
Phillip Swagel, professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, joined us to talk about how Mnuchin would handle economic issues. Swagel was an assistant secretary for economic policy at the Treasury Department during the George W. Bush administration.
On how Mnuchin might deal with the next financial crisis:
At some point there’ll be another one. When we look at his role in the last one…it was in helping clean things up, right. He took a bank — IndyMac — that was just a disaster, they’re a poster child for all the things that went wrong. And he made it incredibly profitable. He worked with the FDIC [Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation]; he worked with them very closely to help people avoid foreclosure. Now many people still got foreclosed on, but he did things the way the FDIC wanted.
Click the above audio player to hear the full interview.
There’s a lot happening in the world. Through it all, Marketplace is here for you.
You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible.
Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.
