Who Told Steven Mnuchin It Was a Good Idea to Take a Swipe at Greta Thunberg?

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is currently attending the World Economic Forum and the former investment banker/film producer decided to use the opportunity to be publicly dismissive of teen climate activist Greta Thunberg.

When asked about Thunberg’s call for public and private sector investors to divest from fossil fuel companies, Mnuchin responded with a flippant “Who?”

“Is she the chief economist or who is she? I’m confused,” he joked because he apparently thinks it’s hilarious for the person in charge of our country’s economy to pretend he’s not familiar with arguably the world’s most famous current activist.

He then went on to explain his joke, saying “After she goes and studies economics in college she can go back and explain that to us.”

The smugness is suffocating.

It’s not just that Mnuchin thinks that only people with a college degree should get a voice in this conversation, it’s that everyone knows even if Thunberg did have an economics degree, Mnuchin wouldn’t care. He’d have plenty more excuses for disparaging and dismissing her.

By the way, the Washington Post spoke to an economist to ask if Mnuchin has any sort of point in his sneering. He does not.

“It’s Economics 101 that tells us that when there is a difference between private costs and costs to society, that difference ought to be included in one’s decision-making,” [economist Gernot] Wagner said. “And when I say ought, of course the private individual won’t; it’s up to somebody in a position of power — let’s say the secretary of Treasury — to want to guide economic policy in the right direction.”

It makes sense that Mnuchin and Thunberg would disagree about economic issues–not just because Thunberg doesn’t have a degree, but because Mnuchin has proven time and again that his chosen brand of economics is the kind rooted in with maximum corruption, providing maximum profit for himself.

At least Thunberg, who is also attending the World Economic Forum, seems unfazed as always.

(image: Ronald Patrick/Getty Images)

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Vivian Kane

Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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