Vote Out Larry Summers

Today the Washington Post has a "Spring Cleaning Special" in which ten writers make the case for something that deserves to be tossed out this spring. On the trash heap is everything from academic tenure to the White House press corps to the phrase "Muslim world." I chose to argue for the elimination of Barack Obama's chief economic adviser, Larry Summers.

My argument is that Summers represents an often overlooked cause of the global financial crisis: Brain Bubbles (not to be confused with bubble brains). This is the process wherein the intelligence of an inarguably intelligent person is inflated and valued beyond all reason, creating a dangerous accumulation of unhedged risk. Brain Bubbles need to be popped; Larry Summers needs to be stopped!

You can read the piece here.

The good news is that Washington Post readers seem to agree. Last I checked, readers were voting to toss out Summers more than anyone or anything else on the list. So add your voice and vote out Summers here.

You never voted for him anyway. In fact, chances are that you voted for a presidential candidate promising to reverse the elites-first economics that Larry Summers -- the ultimate Brain Bubble -- has championed his entire career.

Comments

[mosh]

And here I thought a vote for Obama was a vote against guys like Summers and Rubin and Geithner. How deluded was I -

It might make us all feel better to cast a metaphorical vote against Summers but that just begs the question - what is Obama doing? And why is he doing it? No matter how ugly, I would like an answer to that question. Anybody?

[luckybear]

Evidently Obama thinks Summers is qualified. I say give him a chance. First he is one of many voices. Summers isn't treasury secretary Geitner is. Golsbee from the University of Chicago is very smart and adds another voice to the discussion.

What exactly has Summers done wrong in the Obama administration? Anyone? Klein doesn't like him because he is not "progressive" enough. Until Summers does something wrong in this administration then I say he stays because he is certainly qualified, Naomi just doesn't like his views on capitalism, free trade and liberal economic policies.

Plenty of people in business and government have made mistakes Summers certainly wasn't alone when he called for banking deregulation. Hindsight is 20/20. The 1970's had very high levels of regulation and the economy was in the tank. Some things are hard to predict.

[mosh]

Obama thinks Summers is qualified? Based on what? All the mistakes and poor advice he gave in the past that lead up to this debacle?

You make my point for me - given Summers track record his appointment to Obama's economic panel, if nothing else, looks terrible. He is appointing someone who helped to create the very mess we are now in. That alone should have given Obama pause.

We can only go by actions. In this case Summers past actions should disqualify him from giving this President advice. What else should Obama base his decisions on if not the actions his appointees have taken in the past?

And really when I voted for Obama I didn't expect he would recycle Clinton's cronies the way he has. I really thought, given his rhetoric, that he would bring new blood to Washington - that he would live up to his word and preclude lobbyists from being a part of his administration.

Now that it is clear that Larry Summers earned millions in speaking frees and other niceties from the very banks whose futures he holds in his hands the question is even more relevant and pointed.

It isn't enough for Obama to think Summers is qualified. That just raises the same question in a different way - given all the facts, why would Obama even think that Summers is qualified. And given the appearance of impropriety his lobbying history presents why would Obama break his own pledge and appoint him?

[blue meanie]

Naomi Kein, you are so right. As usual. I could not agree more. Sumners has got to go. And the sooner the better. The fact that Sumners made the recent trip with Obama was not a promising sign. We at the grassroots need to see some sign that Obama has not gone completely astray, or been fully corrupted and co-opted already by the financial establishment.

[lessthanagoogleplex]

to clarify Naomi Klein's trustworthiness from my previous post:

Naomi Klein you are trustworthy - I know you'd never burn my house down (even if you owned a credit default swap CDS or a low cost insurance contract leveraged for 30 times the value of my house - although by law you have absolutely no insurable interest in my property). However, if an arsonist burned down my home and I rebuilt a second home and it too was burned down I still would not have lost as much money as I did investing my savings in the good old US of A. I feel swindled of two thirds of my lifetime savings by all those at the very, very top. The banksters and all those high and mighty who aid and abet them in their over the top greedy swindles. Yes, Virginia, we do have the best rip off your face capitalism that money can buy perhaps we should call it shock and awe capitalism American Oligarch style.

[Daimon]

Isn't the bigger scandal as to WHY Obama picked Summers - and Geitner - in the first place?

[blue meanie]

Yes. Obama needs to pick people who have been right, and who are of sound integrity and judgement. Robert Reich comes to mind.

[mosh]

That is the real question worth asking. Why why why? Obama has to know that the men he placed in his administration were the architects of this debacle, so why are they creating policy for him? Why? Is it simple corruption? Or is Obama doing a Clintonesque move to the center? Look at he position on torture - Obama know the justice department calls the shots in terms of prosecutions so his position on torture looks like political expedience and it must be, what else could it be? How can progressives reconcile Obama's stance on torture and his appointments to the treasury and his economic board with his campaign rhetoric? How? And, therefore, why, why is Obama making these ugly policy decisions?

[VictorLudorum]

Summers could be doing the BarakObama White House what Zoelick claimed he was taking Th World Bank for!

[HMDMSR]

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=brother-can-you-spare-me-a-planet

Mainstream Economics and the Environmental Crisis

By Robert Nadeau

...Several well-known mid–19th century scientists told the economists that there was no basis for substituting economic variables for physical variables in the equations of the theory in physics. But the economists did not appreciate how devastating this criticism was and proceeded to claim that they had transformed the study of economics into a scientific discipline comparable to physics. In what is surely one of the strangest chapters in the history of Western thought, the origins of neoclassical economics were forgotten, the claim that neoclassical economic theory is scientific was almost universally accepted, and subsequent generations of economists disguised the existence of the unscientific axiomatic assumptions in this theory under an increasingly complex maze of mathematical formalism...

[luckybear]

Well that actually may have some truth to it. Read "The Origin of Wealth" for more information on the history of economics.

[HMDMSR]

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=brother-can-you-spare-me-a-planet
By Robert Nadeau

The Origins of Neoclassical Economic Theory
In economics textbooks, the 19th-century creators of the economic theory now used by mainstream economists (Stanley Jevons, Leon Walras, Maria Edgeworth and Vilfredo Pareto) are credited with transforming the study of economics into a rigorously mathematical scientific discipline. There are, however, no mentions in these textbooks, or in all but a few books on the history of economic thought, of a rather salient fact: The progenitors of neoclassical economics, all of whom were trained as engineers, developed their theories by substituting economic variables derived from classical economics for physical variables in the equations of a soon-to-be outmoded mid–19th century theory in physics...

[HMDMSR]

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=brother-can-you-spare-me-a-planet
By Robert Nadeau

In economics textbooks, the 19th-century creators of the economic theory now used by mainstream economists (Stanley Jevons, Leon Walras, Maria Edgeworth and Vilfredo Pareto) are credited with transforming the study of economics into a rigorously mathematical scientific discipline. There are, however, no mentions in these textbooks, or in all but a few books on the history of economic thought, of a rather salient fact: The progenitors of neoclassical economics, all of whom were trained as engineers, developed their theories by substituting economic variables derived from classical economics for physical variables in the equations of a soon-to-be outmoded mid"19th century theory in physics...

...If we do manage to create the institutional frameworks and processes required to develop an environmentally responsible economic theory, many mainstream economists and environmental scientists may be reluctant to cross over the two-culture divide and work on this project. But this resistance could be overcome if they realized that this is a once-in-al­l-human-li­fetimes opportunity. The opportunity is to protect the lives of the 6.6 billion members of the extended human family and the future existence of their descendents by resolving the crisis in the global environment. If the opportunity to work on this project is understood in these terms, perhaps mainstream economists and environmental scientists will realize that there is no other work they could possibly do in their lifetimes...

[lastmanuptonight]

A very eye-opening interview by Bill Moyers on PBS with guest Bill Black. A regulator during the savings and loan crisis of the 80’s with an inside view of today’s crisis showing just how extremely intertwined and complicit the top players are in this debacle.

It’s much deeper than it seems on the surface, and their trying desperately to keep the curtains closed so that we can’t see.
Hold on to your wallets folks.. This is going to be one helluva ride.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz1b__MdtHY

[blue meanie]

I just watched that documentary on Enron the other night, "The Smartest Guys in the Room." Amazing to see how many of the same Wall Street players and institutions were heavily involved in that unbelievably enormous fiasco. They were happy to sign off to pie-in-the sky returns and questionable ethical practices as long as they got their cut. The regulators were called off by Bush and company. California was raped and plundered. And Dick Cheney even made an appearance -- as an Enron apologist, of course.

[mosh]

Unlike his predecessor, Obama isn't an ignorant fool. He will be the first to say he is a well read, well informed history buff. So why is Obama appointing the architects of this fiasco to key posts in his administration? That is the real question. Not whether Goldman Sachs and BOA CEOs are greedy a-holes, we know they are, but why is Obama making the appointments and policy decisions that he is? I wish some knowledgable person would focus on and answer that question coherently because it is driving me a little bit crazy. As Naomi Klein says, hope only goes so far. The hope that was Obama is quickly being replaced by first, surprise, and now, disgust, at least from the people I've been talking to.

[lastmanuptonight]

A very eye opening interview. Bill Moyers on PBS with guest Bill Black. A regulator during the savings and loan crisis of the 80’s with an inside view of today’s crisis.

www.brasschecktv.com/page/604.html

[siri2k]

TY! Naomi Klein.
Done voted here!
Done deal!

[siri2k]

TY MS. KLEIN!!!
Done deal here!

[Wordstosay]

SUMMERS DID THE JOB ASKED OF HIM BY HIS PRESIDENT CLINTON AND THE HILL ! SUMMERS WILL DO THE JOB ASKED OF HIM FROM PRESIDENT OBAMA...TO CORRECT THE ERROR OF THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION AND THE REPUBLICAN'S PARTY NEED FOR DEREGULATION! THIS NATION CANNOT AFFORD TO PUNISHED ITS STAFF FOR DOING THEIR JOBS SO WELL! KEEP SUMMERS FOR I KNOW HE IS DOING A GOOD JOB!

[plaidsportcoat]

Nah. You're wrong, even with the yelling.

[iplaw]

All caps is cruise control for cool.

[303]

Summers' BOSS --and mentor--was not Clinton, but Robert Rubin (Goldman Sachs CEO, and until "forced to resign in shame" a few months ago, Chair of Citicorp)! Summers knows who butters his bread--and it's Not Government or Academia. He has a very limited perspective, and even less experience in how to re-build a sustainable US economy with very DIFFERENT financial rules than the ones he and Rubin--along with Greenspan and Phil Gramm-- created.

There are FEW examples in history of powerful people admitting mistakes and actually fixing the mess they made.

His name belongs near the top of the Economic Screw-ups List. There is nothing to suggest that Summers has flipped and is now pimping for anyone other than his Wall Street masters. Neither wishful thinking nor hopeless hope will change the spots on this saber-toothed tiger.

[lastmanuptonight]

You are 100% correct. Once a Friedmanite, always a Friedmanite. There is just no arguing with them. No matter how many times the theories fail, they hold them up and say but look how shiney it is.

[lessthanagoogleplex]

Naomi Klein you are trustworthy - I know you'd never burn my house down. However, if an arsonist burned down my home and I rebuilt a second home and it too was burned down I still would not have lost as much money as I did investing my savings in the good old US of A. I feel swindled of two thirds of my lifetime savings by all those at the very, very top. The banksters and all those high and mighty who aid and abet them in their over the top greedy swindles. Yes, Virginia, we do have the best rip off your face capitalism that money can buy perhaps we should call it shock and awe capitalism American Oligarch style.

[plaidsportcoat]

Banksters! I love it. Let's make that the new word of the year.

[suejester]

I wish you would run for President...*sigh*