Jon Lovitz and Ben Rhodes are 2 of the least bad ones, obviously keeping in mind the baseline we are talking about here

I agree. I find their politics horrible but considering that baseline again - in comparison I don't think they are horrible people. Like if they were driving in the woods and they came upon a somebody's dog that had been hit by a car - they'd pull over and have a look

But Plouffe to me is entirely different. I don't trust a word coming out of his mouth and I think he'd do anything for money...

David Plouffe

Controversy

Also - if he saw that dog - he'd just keep driving. I wonder if he's at Timothy Geithner's level. If Geithner was driving in those woods and he hit that dog - I'm certain he'd keep on driving. In 2017 I wrote the following to share at r/politics to remind the libs that Trump didn't invent crime, corruption, and horribleness in politics.

Timothy Geithner was Obama's Secretary of the Treasury. What do you think he's been doing since he left government?

He's been scamming poor people. Yes, really.

Geithner is the president of a $11.2 billion private equity fund called Warburg Pincus. The fund controls Mariner Finance which a predatory lending company. What does Mariner Finance do? It does "loans-by-mail". It mails checks to poor people, hoping they'll cash them without reading the fine print. The text reveals sky-high interest rates and a clause forcing the lendee to pay the company's legal fees should it be forced to sue them for their debts.

These loans are very similar to payday loans but they aren't as closely regulated. The loans are for bigger amounts and a name that doesn't immediately reveal how predatory they are. Mariner representatives described the company as fulfilling a "social need." Mariner Finance likes to keep a very low profile. A search for "Mariner Finance" at Wikipedia yields zero results. The slimy company operates an insurance company in the Turks and Caicos. Gee, I wonder why. It's a country where regulations are notably lax.

"A way of monetizing poor people": How private equity firms make money offering loans to cash-strapped Americans

July 1, 2018

Mariner stands out for the frequent use of mass-mailed checks, which allows customers to accept a high-interest loan on an impulse — just sign the check. It has become a key marketing method. [...] The interest rate [can be] 33%.

The company's other tactics include borrowing money for as little as 4 or 5% — thanks to the bond market — and lending at rates as high as 36%, a rate that some states consider usurious; making millions of dollars by charging borrowers for insurance policies of questionable value; operating an insurance company in the Turks and Caicos, where regulations are notably lax, to profit further from the insurance policies; and aggressive collection practices that include calling delinquent customers once a day and embarrassing them by calling their friends and relatives, customers said.

Finally, Mariner enforces its collections with a busy legal operation, funded in part by the customers themselves: The fine print in the loan contracts obliges customers to pay as much as an extra 20% of the amount owed to cover Mariner's attorney fees, and this has helped fund legal proceedings that are both voluminous and swift. Last year, in Baltimore alone, Mariner filed nearly 300 lawsuits. In some cases, Mariner has sued customers within five months of the check being cashed.

[...]

[Compared to payday lenders] "consumer installment" lenders, such as Mariner, offer slightly larger loans — from about $1,000 to more than $25,000 — for longer periods of time.

Today, three of the largest companies in consumer installment lending are owned to a significant extent by private equity funds — Mariner is owned by Warburg Pincus; Lendmark Financial Services is held by the Blackstone Group, which is led by billionaire Stephen Schwarzman; and a portion of OneMain Financial is slated to be purchased by Apollo Global, led by billionaire Leon Black, and Varde Partners.

These lending companies have undergone significant growth in recent years. To raise more money to lend, they have sold bonds on Wall Street.

"Some of the largest private equity firms today are supercharging the payday and subprime lending industries," said Jim Baker of the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, a nonprofit organization that has criticized the industry. In some cases, "you've got billionaires extracting wealth from working people."

Exactly how much Mariner Finance and Warburg Pincus are making is difficult to know.

[...]

As treasury secretary, Geithner excoriated predatory lenders and their role in the Wall Street meltdown of 2007. Bonds based on subprime mortgages, he noted at the time, had a role in precipitating the panic.

[...]

Twice last year, Mariner Finance raised more money by issuing bonds based on its loans to "subprime" borrowers — that is, people with imperfect credit.

[...]

"Loans-by-mail" program accounted for 28% of Mariner's loans issued in the third quarter of 2017, according to Kroll. Mariner's two largest competitors, by contrast, rarely use the tactic.

Mariner generally targets people who have imperfect credit scores, according to the bond rating agencies. After a mailed check is cashed by a recipient, a Mariner rep follows up and solicits more information about the borrower — this helps in collections — and sometimes proposes additional lending. About half of the loans that begin with an unsolicited check are later converted into conventional loans.

[...]

The other pool of Mariner Finance revenue comes from selling insurance polices.

Mariner pitches the insurance policies to customers as a way of paying off a loan in case of mishaps: There is a life insurance policy that promises to make the loan payments if you die, an unemployment policy that makes the payments if you lose your job, and an accident and disability policy in case of those possibilities. Mariner also sells a car club membership that covers the cost of repairs.

These can add several hundred dollars to a loan.

[...]

The trouble with the insurance policies like the ones that Mariner sells to borrowers is that they devote so little money to covering claims, said Birny Birnbaum, executive director of the consumer advocacy organization Center for Economic Justice, which has issued reports on the credit insurance industry. He formerly served as the Texas Department of Insurance's chief economist.

"At the end of the day, these lenders take far more in profit from the insurance premium than the amount paid in benefits for the consumer," Birnbaum said.