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.

Imagine producing Suicide Squad and then claiming you’re smarter than anyone. https://t.co/N973LllFVn

— Brock Wilbur (@brockwilbur) January 23, 2020

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.

If you don’t have an economics degree like Greta, they’ll mock you for not having one.

If you DO have one, as I do, they’ll claim it’s illegitimate.

Haters gonna hate & deniers will deny. They will deny logic, science, and environmental consensus in order to protect oligarchy. https://t.co/6b0S40MQk2

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 23, 2020

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.

Dude whose bank foreclosed on a 90-year-old woman’s home over 27 cents disrespects a 17-year-old asking world leaders to use their influence to save the planet https://t.co/idtDY8iFhQ #GretaThunberg #Davos

— David Beard (@dabeard) January 23, 2020

No, we should listen to Mnuchin instead – a man with no more than a bachelor’s degree, sued for asset stripping, investigated by the OIG for misuse of taxpayer resources, involved in a long string of questionable foreclosures, who lost $80 million in bad film deals. https://t.co/AcMqawtNSo

— Myke Cole (@MykeCole) January 23, 2020

Since Steve Mnuchin thinks Greta Thunberg needs to study economics, here’s that time AOC and Elizabeth Warren taught him a lesson about his economic failings. He’s acting like a bully now, but he wasn’t so tough when they called him out. pic.twitter.com/vzsZQliA5s

— Adam Best (@adamcbest) January 23, 2020

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

My gap year ends in August, but it doesn’t take a college degree in economics to realise that our remaining 1,5° carbon budget and ongoing fossil fuel subsidies and investments don’t add up. 1/3 pic.twitter.com/1virpuOyYG

— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) January 23, 2020

So either you tell us how to achieve this mitigation or explain to future generations and those already affected by the climate emergency why we should abandon our climate commitments. 2/3

— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) January 23, 2020

(image: Ronald Patrick/Getty Images)

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