If You're Looking For A Drinking Buddy, Look No Further Than Tim Geithner, Says Former Japanese Prime Minister

The ex-Treasury Secretary apparently likes to party and has time on his hands.

Author:: Bess Levin
Updated:: Jan 14, 2019
Original:: Apr 5, 2013

The ex-Treasury Secretary apparently loves to party and has time on his hands.

Former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has told fellow lawmakers that nights of hard drinking with visiting dignitaries formed part of his diplomacy. Noda, a well-known aficionado of "sake", said he "chugged" down cups of the rice wine with then-US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and separately with British premier David Cameron, the Yomiuri Shimbun said Thursday. "When I was a finance minister, I chugged them down with Treasury Secretary Geithner. He loved 'Kamotsuru'," a sake from western Hiroshima prefecture, Noda said as lawmakers from his Democratic Party of Japan launched a group to promote Japanese drinks abroad.

Japan ex-PM 'chugged down' sake with Geithner, Cameron [AFP]

As you may have heard, Obama is apparently close to nominating Jack Lew for Treasury Secretary, giving Tim Geithner his late Christmas wish: a one-way ticket outta there. And while he's previously said to have no interest in writing about his time in Washington (and at the NY Fed before that), friends o' TG claim that his plan for the next year or so involve "a round of 'detox' and writing a book." Obviously we're still very far off from anything concrete but publishers will undoubtedly be banging down his door in no time and when they do, it might be nice to at least have a title to wet their palates. While Geithner packs his bags, let's do him a solid and come up with some options. The year spent sunning himself off the coast of Ko Samui (or puttering around Larchmont, or taking a job with the least amount of responsibility possible, whatever the detox entails) will presumably do wonders to take the edge of the last 48 months but if he's still in an angsty phase by the time he sits down to bang out his story, perhaps one of the following would work?

Make what you will of this somewhat bizarre story but our takeaway is that the Treasury Secretary's FIL would make a great party guest and/or Benihana tablemate. Food critic Albert Sonnenfeld, whose daughter, Carole, is wed to the country’s top money man, stunned strangers at Bar Boulud Thursday night when he claimed President Obama’s nomination of Dartmouth College president Dr. Jim Yong Kim to head the World Bank was part of a plan to allow Geithner to take over the Ivy League school’s top post...“That’s why Obama nominated [Kim] for the World Bank — so that there’d be an opening,” Sonnenfeld claimed to a dinner companion at the eatery’s communal table. Seated with five other couples he didn’t know, Sonnenfeld indiscreetly claimed Geithner has since changed his mind. “They offered him the presidency of Dartmouth. But now he doesn’t want it,” said the gabby granddad. “He wants something else...Sonnenfeld also let slip that Carole Geithner “can’t wait to get out” of DC because “she has to hold her nose and entertain all these Republicans.” Sonnenfeld added, according to the witness, “Some of them she actually liked, like Jim Bunning from Kentucky. But now he’s gone. Can you imagine having to entertain John Boehner and his wife, with his fake tan?” Geithner spokesman Anthony Coley told us, “Interesting theory about Dartmouth, but to paraphrase Kissinger: ‘It has the disadvantage of being made up.'" [NYP] *It's not actually clear if he was drinking. If this is how he is sans sauce, all the better.

Earlier today, it was reported that Timothy P. Geithner has informed people that he "plans to leave the administration by the end of January, even if President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans haven’t reached an agreement to raise the debt ceiling." Will this actually happen? Those unfamiliar with the Treasury Secretary's attempts to leave his post in the past will say yes. He's leaving, ship-shape. Those who've watched TPG try and fail to bust out of Washington for the last nineteen months, however, know better. More than likely, he's not going anywhere and it's not because deep down inside he doesn't actually want to go home but because his bosses won't let him. Witness, if you will, a small sampling of examples in which his requests have been denied, either directly (via someone laughing in his face) or indirectly (by giving those who've applied to replace him the wrong directions to their interview):

According to CG, there's a desk at BlackRock waiting for the former Treasury Secretary when he's ready.

“You can smile and laugh about it all you want,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah) bristled at Mr. Geithner during a House Budget Committee hearing. Mr. Chaffetz then intoned he was getting sick of the Treasury secretary’s “silly little smirk.” To be sure, Mr. Geithner did have a smile on his face during parts of the hearing, particularly when he was interrupted by Republicans on the panel when they didn’t like his answers on deficit reduction. He even spent part of the hearing answering questions with his arms crossed. At one point, he suggested that Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R., Kan.) had an “adolescent perspective” on how the economy worked.

You won't have Tim Geithner to kick around any more. The little guy and now-former U.S. Treasury Secretary won't be pursuing a D.C. sequel.

As you may have heard, because you've read the reports reports or picked up on the Morse code message he's blinked out during every appearance on CNBC or he threw himself on the hood of your car and screamed "Get me outta here" the last time you drove up to the Treasury building, Tim Geithner is ready to leave Washington. Has been for some time, in fact, but previous requests to go home were all denied. Now that his bosses are supposedly going to allow him to leave in the event Obama is reelected, many are wondering what will be next for TG. Despite having spent the majority of his career in public service and giving the impression that he has no desire to work for Wall Street, Bloomberg is thinking that with the albatross that his his unsellable Larchmont house around his neck, a family, and college tuition to pay, Geithner may not have a choice. The years in public service -- particularly engaging in diplomacy with domestic and foreign partners -- left a deep impression on Geithner, infusing him with a sense of purpose that he might find lacking on Wall Street...Yet the years in civil servitude have also left Geithner in need of a better salary. Geithner is one of the least wealthy men to head the Treasury Department in recent years. He took more than a 50 percent pay cut to assume the job. His $199,700 salary is higher than the $174,000 earned by most members of Congress. His pay has been increased by $8,400 in three years, yet his net worth pales next to such predecessors as Hank Paulson and Bob Rubin. With two mortgages and two college-age children, the lure of private-sector money could be hard to resist. BlackRock's Fink, for instance, received $23.8 million in salary and stock in 2011, making him No. 1 in the Finance 50, Bloomberg Markets' annual ranking of the best-paid CEOs at the largest U.S. financial companies. Other ideas Bloomberg has for ways Geithner can make ends meet that he's already said no to include writing a memoir. He "publicly ruled out" doing so in September, but they're pretty sure he'll reconsider after the guy he hired to patch up his roof tells him the whole thing needs to be replaced. What's Next For Tim Geithner [Bloomberg] Related: Tim Geithner To Finally Be Set Free? Also Related: Robert Shiller, Westchester-Area Realtor Rub Tim Geithner’s Nose In It

Tim Geithner basically spent the last four years trying and failing, numerous times, to leave Washington, i.e. his own personal torture chamber, but according to Chaz Gasparino, TG may allow himself to be pulled back in.