For those who do not know,Larry Summers was until recently the President of Harvard University and considered a whizkid economist destined for the Nobel Prize in Economics.
Three years ago, using his bully pulpit as the President of that University,Summers harangued others that women are congenitally incapable of dealing with the sciences and any discipline that required mathematical skills.That produced an outcry from scientists well versed in such things and Summers retreated sulking saying he did not imply any thing that his words were designed to convey.
He must be carefully watched as he has stuck himself in the inner circle of Barack Obama’s advisers from where he can do more damage.
At the time he uttered those words about the inferiority of women, I wondered what would impel a man of Summers’ stature to go off on such a vile rant.
The answer was Elizabeth Warren.Again, for those of us who don’t know it,Elizabeth Warren is the holder of the prestigious Chair of Gottlieb Professor of Commercial Law at Harvard law School.In that role, she deals with subjects like mortgages,insurance and other topics of interest to ordinary citizens.
Although Law Professors are not known for dwelling on economics, Elizabeth Warren has delved into these subjects with a discerning eye and writes with a clarity unknown to economists.
In the past year Elizabeth Warren has shown,using government statistics, that although many families now earn 50% more as a result of the two income families becoming prevalent,they are unable to save more primarily because their residences cost much more and the mortgages eat up all additional income.This is why using the residence as a nest egg for retirement has become normal.
Secondly,Elizabeth has also shown that most of the bankruptcies declared by individuals are due to unforeseen medical expenses incurred by uninsured or underinsured families.
These two pieces of information were lying there for all economists including Larry Summers to see.Perched on their high horses and dealing with these as trivia that they need not be concerned with, Summers and his ilk ignored them until Elizabeth Warren used them to show why we are in this fix.Without a single word of gobbledygook.
That does not sit well with Larry Summers.So he goes out obliquely at women deriding their capability to reason analytically.
