It’s All Greek To Me

It’s like, how much?

Listening to Tim Geithner’s interview with Rachel Maddow last night, it’s clear that the Treasury Secretary has undergone a thorough and complete PR overhaul.

Despite the more activist and progressive profile, however, perceptions are hard to change. This photo by Jim LoScalzo shows Geithner with the Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou last week at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Washington. Take Geithner’s complicity during years of Wall Street derivative trading and mortgage abuse, marry that to the Greek financial crisis threatening the euro and the news that the Greek meltdown is also tied to Goldman Sachs and more fun and games with derivatives, and it’s not a reassuring picture.

What, for example, gives the public any comfort that Tim can reasonably scale or quantify anything, especially in those five-star rooms with the sense of back room dealings, and that look on the Greek minister’s face?