Larry Summers, the Director of the National Economic Council is one of President Obama’s chief economic advisers. So why, in a recession when more people are unemployed than at any time since the Depression era, is he going around making statements like this one which only adds fuel to the fire that Democrats, now that they have the power, don’t give a damn about ordinary Americans who have lost their jobs or fear that their heads are next on the chopping block at their place of work?
“I think recessions like the one we’re suffering now have very substantial costs,” said Lawrence Summers, director of Obama’s National Economic Council.
“Addressing 10.2 percent unemployment is a matter of very great urgency. It is not something that is going to be fixed in a week, or a month, or a year,” Summers said in after-dinner remarks for a conference on innovation and the economy sponsored by Intel Corp and the Aspen Institute.
Tell us more good news, Larry, why don’t you? This sounds a lot like George Bush’s infamous statement that governing was “hard work,” only couched in slightly more sophisticated language than the “former alcoholic I’d most like to have a beer with” would have employed.
Look, I know you were at the Aspen Institute talking to wealthy senior executives of business and the financial industry, and the same intellectual giants of that dismal science known as Economics who got us into this mess (even while lining their own pockets), but don’t you have a clue how this is going to sound to your average American citizen who has lost his or her job, or fears they may in the near future?
I’m sorry Larry, but telling people that unemployment is a tough thing to fix isn’t exactly what America needs to hear right now, and it sure isn’t exactly the message the White House should be putting out. It should be saying that it will do everything and anything to increase the creation of new jobs. Furthermore, it shoukld be backing up thiose pledges with detailed policy proposals to put Americans back to work. Whining about how hard it is to create jobs is the absolute worst thing any Director of The President’s Economic Council should be saying.
Not only does it discourage progressive Democrats in Congress who are fighting to create jobs legislation, but it seriously harms the Democrats’ ability to turn out voters next Fall in the 2010 elections when Republican opponents can point to Summers’ (and Tim Geithner’s) ineffectual leadership and seemingly callous attitude to the plight of millions of Americans with no jobs and increasingly no homes or health care, either.
It won’t matter that the Republican solutions they offer will be the same old warmed over refried beans of “smaller government,” “tax cuts” and “deregulation” that created this disaster. If people perceive that Democrats don’t have a clearly defined plan to address unemployment they’ll either stay home or vote back in the same idiots of the GOP who created the Bush era’s “slash and burn” style of economic development.
Why was Larry Summers hired in the first place to head the President’s National Economic Council? This was a man whose investment decisions at Harvard lost the school’s endowment 1.8 BILLION DOLLARS. To give that number some perspective here’s the budget deficit for the entire state of New York in 2009: $3.2 Billion.
All I can say is thank god Larry Summers wasn’t in charge of New York State’s finances because if he could lose 1.8 Billion at Harvard, imagine what he could do managing a state budget. Oh wait — now he’s one of the chief people responsible for the Federal Government’s economic policies. Mea culpa!
Yet, for some inexplicable reason this inept economist and college administrator is our top economic adviser. So what is the grand plan to create new jobs that he and his fellow advisers to President Obama are pushing? Hold a jobs forum!
The White House has pointed out repeatedly that job creation traditionally lags an economic recovery, as firms squeeze more productivity out of existing workers before adding to their payrolls. As a result, it is eager to encourage firms to boost hiring and is hosting a jobs forum on Thursday to explore ways the process can be speeded up.
Summers said policies to foster science in schools, as well as research and development in the private sector, would be crucial to aiding long-term U.S. productivity growth.
The White House jobs forum will also focus on how to boost U.S. exports, and Summers reiterated the United States would no longer be the engine on which the rest of the world economy could fly.
In my five decades on this planet, I’ve seen lots of “economic summits” and “government forums.” You know what usually happens when they are over? Nothing changes. Nada. Zip. Trust me, this “jobs forum” is just a dog and pony show, and all it will create is a lot of crappy talking points. One thing it won’t do is create a single new job. All a jobs forum amounts to is a public relations event, not a true set of policies or legislation to actually take substantive action to create jobs.
And jobs are what this country needs right now, not more supercilious talk and useless bloviation from gasbags like Larry “I screwed up Harvard’s Endowment Fund and all I got was this cushy job as head of the National Economic Council” Summers. Too bad President Obama got conned into appointing this idiot to be his chief economic adviser. It was arguably one of the worst appointments Obama made, and until Summers is replaced and a new economic team put in place don’t expect much help from the Obama administration if you need a job. Because Larry summers comes from a long line of insiders who “got theirs” and have no clue how to help the rest of us “get ours.”
But hey, aren’t the aspens pretty in the fall, Larry?
