Geithner: 'I Never Had a Real Job.'

Meredith Jessup | April 25, 2010 3:12 PM

In a defense against a popularly held myth about him having worked on Wall Street prior to his time as Secretary of the Treasury Department, Tim Geithner told CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS":

I find that the charge that — the myth that I worked in Wall Street all my life, somewhat amusing... But it is part of a narrative that hardened. People came to view the judgments we were making through the prism of a myth … it's actually very damaging. It’s completely false, of course, and it, you know, should have been corrected a long time ago.

As the Wall Street Journal points out, the idea that Geithner worked on Wall Street is indeed a myth:

Geithner has worked in government his whole life. Before becoming Treasury secretary, he was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which is a government job but is closely associated with Wall Street. The New York Fed president is selected by a board of private sector bankers and other private sector officials but has to be approved by the Federal Reserve Board in Washington. Almost all of the New York Fed’s profits get turned over to the U.S. government.

"What I say is that I never had a real job," Geithner joked.