Larry Summers can be forgiven for being aggressively wrong in the 1990’s if he is committed to being right today. But he can’t be forgiven for being an unmitigated asshole, so stop with the trial balloons and find someone else to be the next Federal Reserve chairman.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
47 Comments
Recent Posts
- Day 14: Louisiana Senator Approvingly Compares Trump to Stalin
- Day 13: Elon Musk Flexes His Muscles
- Day 12: While Elon Musk Takes Over, We Podcast With Driftglass and Blue Gal
- Day 11: Harm of Fascist Regime’s Foreign Aid Freeze Comes Into View
- Day 10: The Fascist Regime Blames a Plane Crash on Nonwhite People
If they don’t see a difference between Summers and Yellen in the merits, as claimed in the article, then why go with Summers? What gives them evidence that Summers is committed to regulating Wall Street? He’s a deregulating neoliberal to the core; if that’s what thy want then that’s fine, but don’t try to act like we’re “fucking retards” and can’t see through him. I do believe he’s commmited to improving employment situation, though. But so is Yellen, who I wanted back when Ben got the job again.
Nominating Summers would be almost as tone deaf as nominating Ray Kelly. I really hope the president isn’t that stupid.
Sidebar: I supported Bernanke when he was renominated, but would have preferred Yellen.
Krugman also wants Yellen despite his “admiration” for Summers. But how relevant is a history as a deregulator to the FED job which doesn’t (to me) seem to have that much of a role in regulation? Could Obama be going for Summers to provide some cover for a re-regulation agenda? How realistic is the latter in the context of the current congress anyway? Does it matter that Yellen is a woman and summers is an asshole? Which would be more effective at moving the FED in a positive direction?
Could Obama be going for Summers to provide some cover for a re-regulation agenda?
Like a Nixon goes to China moment? Good luck with that.
He supported/engineered the Clinton Wall Street de-reg; he did everything he could to dis-inform the prez about the size of the 2008 financial meltdown and the need for more stimulus.
What in hell has he been RIGHT about in his public career? Anything major? What? And now he gets to pull (from a completely independent perch) even more finance levers at the Fed?
Why does the nation apparently owe this man influential position after influential position ad nauseum? When does he retire from “helping” the country? (not to mention the Left, haha)
Apparently there is no stronger (Dem) credential than being on the Clinton WH/cabinet. Jeebus.
Jennifer Yellen is qualified, but is being discounted because of the glass-ceiling effect. It would give bankers the sads.
It’s Janet Yellen .. just so others know
Oops, thanks for the correction.
Why is being an asshole a deal-breaker? We’re talking about central bankers….
He’s not just an asshole. He’s proven himself to be a major fuck-up as well. Upwardly mobile failure.
I am beginning to think that the assholery of the bankers is one the key component in their makeup that allows for screwing over the rest of the planet.
Whether that means money makes you an asshole or assholes are drawn to banking I don’t know.
The problem is that the one group to whom Summers ISN’T an asshole is bankers….he’s mostly an asshole to those lower on his pecking order. Prick.
Retire, already, Superbrain Larry. The nation is sick to death of you.
In all seriousness, it’s important that the Fed Chair be able to convince the rest of the board. Bernanke has been particularly good at this – at getting the inflation hawks to move in his direction.
It’s not just that he’s an asshole. It’s that he has such a massive ego that he’s deeply, genetically incapable of ever acknowledging that he might be wrong – even in retrospect, let alone in real time.
People like that tend to make more than an average number of catastrophically bad decisions. That’s the part of Summers you will always get, no matter how “brilliant” he is and no matter what he’s saying about any given issue today.
Sounds much like Cheney!
So what? Sure he was “wrong” but Democratic groups did well. Wealthy urbanites did really well under Clinton. So we fucked over some rubes in the rust belt and some trailer trash in fly over country. Honestly, fuck those people. NYC, DC, Chicago, Sanfran, the educated, socially liberal, and cosmopolitan elites did well there… you know our people.
Government is a weapon, and we should use it to extract from our enemies and give to our cultural allies.
Has anyone else noticed that this commenter takes Republican talking points about Democrats, and spouts them as if Democrats actually say and believe these things?
Check out his comment history. It’s the same shtick over and over.
yeah, I’ve definitely noticed.
Dear Editor,
As a lifelong member of the Democrat Party…
His comment about being a gang member and criminal in his youth lacked credibility too.
yes
It’s some high level trolling.
to say it’s high level is a bit much. comments are created out of wholecloth and spouted as facts
I noticed and appreciate your comments.
I’d say it’s been clear for quite some time that Si is a fake Dem or (at best) a party of one. Which is fine, except that his point of view is so noxious.
But most likely he thinks he’s engaging in very clever satire “exposing” the rampant hypocrisy of progressives (in his mind).
No, more pernicious than that, I think he wants his repub talking points pov represented on this blog as a genuine pov of a/ some Democrat[s].
Either to cite his comments themselves, or in the hope that some actual Democrat will agree with him.
That’s why I think it’s worth it to point out what’s going on.
well to cite it and to bring down the credibility of the conversation here. also Republicans will cite it. and lots of ppl read Bootrib without participating, it’s a way to say “democrats are divided on xyz”
I really appreciate your responses to him.
Why?
Why do we keep rewarding those that got it “aggressively wrong” and ignoring those that were right then and right now? Summers, along with all the other neo-liberal so-called smart guys, decided that financial regulation was quaint and obsolete as if capitalism itself had transformed itself. If he didn’t know better, than he’s not half as smart as he thinks he is, and if he did know better, he’s evil.
America: a country where those who are aggressively wrong—Hell, militantly wrong, on serial occasions!—are given positions of ever greater importance.
One of the (many) reasons we can’t reform ourselves…constantly shooting ourselves in the head.
William Greider No More Second Chances for Larry Summers.
Larry’s record as aggressively wrong extends way past the 90’s. He’s the genius who refused to present a larger stimulus to Obama.
This is a rather important point.
Ben Bernanke has told Congress again and again that they need to ramp up fiscal stimulus. Would Summers have done that?
Serious people in Congress listen to the Fed Chair when it comes to economic policy (as we learned to our dismay with Alan Greenspan), so we’re talking about a least a handful of votes. The policy coming out of Congress would have been even worse over the past few years without his prodding.
would it have mattered, the $1 trillion mark was one one no one would vote for whatever reason. Would the Fed saying we needed more have matter? I’m not sure it would have given the size of the Recovery Act as it was passed.
I agree 100% about the psychological barrier to the “T-word” in 2009, but I’m not even talking about the size of the original stimulus bill.
Bernanke kept hammering home the need for more stimulus throughout 2010-2012, when he made his Chair’s (quarterly? biannual?) appearances before Congress.
Totally right, and we did get continued stimulus throughout 2009 & 2010 with the unemployment extensions, aid to states and the payroll tax holiday. The only thing that we needed more of was infrastructure improvements and investment that was in the President’s jobs bill.
But the president needed to know what would be optimal, what was necessary even if votes not attainable
How do we know that he didn’t know? Let’s not assume that he only knows what his advisors tell him, he’s pretty smart.
He is smart but he’s not an economist; this was during the transition. will try to find the link to the story about it.
what I mean is it involved a lot of number crunching on the part of economists to get those figures
and precisely because he’s so smart it shouldn’t have been a matter of Summers second guessing what was best, he should have had them present the whole story as they (Romer) analyzed it. here’s a link
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/business/2012/02/could-memo-christina-romer-have-saved-economy/49057/
refused to present and refused to let Romer present, which is worse imo. he didn’t have to stand behind it, but could have let her lay out the full picture for our President
If only Summers could be caught e-mailing pictures of his Schwanz…
This is like basketball where a coach who has never had a .500 season in his life keeps getting hired because he has “experience”. Summers was also aggressively wrong in 2009.
This is the last last straw for Obama – this and chained CPI – the guy is just not playing with a full deck. Either that or he’s being blackmailed or is utterly corrupt. I don’t like any of those choices.
The only thing that matters. What do the Senators who will do the filibuster kabuki to confirm him think?
good point – if Warren, Sanders, et al filibuster they should be able to get enough republicans to block it.
as for whether they should filibuster their president – hell frikkin yes – time for a wakeup call that can be heard inside the bubble
Janet Yellen won my heart in 2009, when she came out swinging against the racist lie that the Community Reinvestment Act caused the mortgage meltdown.
I cheered out loud when I heard that Obama was nominating her for a seat the Fed Board. Yep, I’m that much of a nerd.
Sometimes two cents is enough. In fact I think you can buy a trial balloon still for that price. (If you buy in bulk.)