Summers to Be Top White House Economic Adviser at NEC

Another clinton recyclable. C(linton)hange you can believe in.

Great. Another woman hater.

Don’t really care who it is, so long as they work together and get the job done. Summers made a huge jerk of himself at Harvard, maybe he can make it up here…

Why is he sexist or a woman hater if he states an opinion that is about women?
Do women find all comments other than: women are the greatest, women should rule the world, women are equal to men, to be indicative of a woman hater?
What if had said that short people aren’t as inherently apt at basketball?
Who says that his opinion is sexist just because it’s about a woman?
I applaud his courage to say what he actually believes rather than trying to be PC and pretending to believe something that society says he should.

These cry baby claims of sexism have to stop. They serve no purpose other than to make the women whining about it look like the weaker sex. Now get over it my sweeties.

It’s beginning to look like Obama “gets it”. He seems to realize that the economy is now the TOP priority for almost everyone, instead of his fancy social programs he touted during his campaign.
First things first… we need to put the brakes on the slow-motion crash of investments, real estate, and jobs.
So far, I think Obama is generally on the right track.

kennedy: LMAO

Before everyone gets all upset over former Clinton staffers, please remember that our economy was pretty good during the Clinton years, whether or not we “like” Bill and Hillary.
Apparently, the Clintons did SOMETHING right. Our financial problems didn’t begin until Bush invaded the wrong country after the Muslim attacks against America.

Stress? ok the federal goverment for the past two years has been offseting any federal payments I am entitled to. There is this program the *DICA and *TOP. They are required to “offset federal debt as agents for all goverment agencies,including Social Security benefit payments. My “offset” was a forclosed home in 1999 that had a HUD loan.(I have tried to find out if this debt is beyond the statue of limitations for collection which i believe to be 7 years, no one has been able to tell me )This program, with the forclosure crisis looming will soon becoming well know by alot of families that are already in a financial distress. There is a process to waive the debt but I, with an income below the poverty level could not qualify, The FMS said “it would not be appropriate to remove my debt”. In conclusion I suggest anyone with a forclosed HUD loan file bankrupcy if you can afford it.
maybe they should bail out all the people in forclosure directly…use the money to pay the back mortgage so people can stay in thier homes.

Don, you cannot possibly believe that wasting 750 billion dollars in Iraq wasn’t a catalyst for triggering the credit crash. Not only did America waste all that money, but it caused the Muslims to seek economic revenge in the form of increased oil prices.
Have you forgotten that Osama bin Laden said “We may not be able to defeat America militarily, but we can destroy America economically”?
Everything has cause and effect. And OF COURSE the current crash had MANY causes, not the least of which was lending money to people who couldn’t afford the payments.
But any “crash” has a “last straw”, or something which sets the downward spiral in motion.
No, the crash was NOT entirely Bush’s fault, but the invasion of Iraq started a chain of events.
And, whatever you meant, I don’t consider myself “unfortunate”. Sure, the financial crisis is probably going to cause my wife and me to lose our home, but a lot of people are worse-off. We lived too high on the hog for too many years, so my problems are my own fault. This does not make me “unfortunate”; it makes me short-sighted.

I’m amazed at the complaints over Clinton admin. persons being “recycled”. It’s like complaining that your local baseball team just signed the starting rotation from the last World Series winner.
They presided over the greatest economic expansion in US history. It was certainly not all their doing, but it was helped by balancing the budget, providing great liquidity of capital, which even Newt Gingrinch has grudgingly admitted was done by Clinton DESPITE the GOP Congress trying to cut taxes to big shots.

Thank you, Volim…
I appreciate your thoughts, and you’re smart enough to know that we are just a couple of people out of many thousands who are in the same boat.
This is why I cannot call myself “unfortunate” as Don did. Every time my wife and I analyze our budget (which doesn’t work), we hear about someone who has a much worse situation.
Besides, like quite a few folks, we should have seen this coming and stopped running up debt several years ago.
There is plenty of “blame” to go around for the current financial crisis. But instead of pointing fingers, everyone needs to look for SOLUTIONS, instead of finding fault.

Sometimes when you have a great thinker that doesn’t play well with others you put them in a room and feed them under the door. You get all of the good stuff that comes out or the room while filtering out the rest.
President Obama knows what he is doing.

Now Mr. Obama’s followers are now embracing past Clinton’s operators as sacred. If you want the Clinton’s years, Hillary was your women. Mr. Obama remains a serial liar.

Wow! Lets bring a few Clinton years people. You know when the economy grew and prosperty was great. When we had peace. All those horrible years. I know the Reps hate it because if it works, how will they use fear and negitivity in 2012. Hey, if we need a team to be ready to run with the ball on 1/20, he is picking the right men and women.And given the current state of the country, we need to pick up that ball and run down field and score big time. Go Obama!

If you don’t like whats happening in this country I’m sure a third world country will take you. All working together is what will get us through.

I find human behavior very interesting. No matter what is written or broadcasted… if you can respond … you get those that criticize and you get those that cheer hallelujah. Why is this piece of news any different? … yawn. Blah Blah Blah. For sanity sake folks turn off the news, go play with your children and here’s a concept… have dinner together as a family for a change. the media is too busy pulling you away from what’s important.

I can’t believe all the whining and crying about Obama’s picks from the Clinton administration. Are these whiners afraid things might turn around and get better.???Are they afraid things will get so good it will be like having Clinton back in office again. You know the good old days when the only thing we had to worry about was the pres. getting a b.j. from an intern? Those things (b.j.)don’t seem so bad any more after loosing children to the Irag war,All your money and your job is gone and no end in sight.

You know now is the time that we should put all our oppions aside and come together to solve our national problem. If everyone spend their energy on trying to come up with a solution than trying to critisize President Obama, than just maybe we can save our country or restore her back to the industrial country that she is. AMERICA THE GREAT. Why not each of us go on a fast and pray and call on the GOD that we serve, I don’t care what GOD you serve, let’s call on them to heal this country and bring peace within its boarders.

Hey folks,
Obama never promised to shun all folks connected to the Clintons. If he had there would be noone with experience to serve in his admnistration since the last Dem before Clinton was Carter back in 1976. What you want in order to DELIVER change is experienced managers and legislators who know their jobs and can get things done. Stop the whinning.

I predict the markets will react VERY favorably to this on Monday. Good job, President-Elect Obama!

I am a feminist (good at math, too) and have no problem at all w Summers.
He will do a great job.

Back to the future. Change? change What?

Well now, let’s begin by watching the personnel barry uses to affect his ‘changes.’ Much like the freddie/fannie mess, you certainly have to consider not using the same people who created the problem as the lead dogs to fix it. If real change is going to happen, barry must do something different and collecting the econ-smarties of failed past administration certainly, in my book anyway, doesn’t fill be with much confidence that much will be different.

“failed past administrations” . . . not true at all.

I read in one blog about this subject that I or anyone who voted for George Bush should just be quite . Well , I do believe we in America have a right to discent . I am a Viet Nam Vet and that alone gives me the right to say what I please . And I believe we all have that right . I didn’t vote for Obama but I do hope he straightens out the mess this country is in . The reason I don’t vote democrat most of the time is I don’t believe in inocent babies been aborted . Someone has to speak up for them, they can’t .Yes, war requires that we kill but I had no choice, mothers do .

He is using his community organizing skills to put people around him so his lack of executive or any other experience for that matter can carry him for 4 years.
Just hope they go by quickly and there is something left of America in 2012.

I’m female and I majored in Engineering in college and graduated near the top of my class. I’ve heard a lot said about how this Summers guy is supposedly ‘brilliant’, but based on that one comment alone you and peoples’ support for him BECAUSE of that comment, you can tell that what he is in fact is a first class salesman rather than a first class policy wonk.
Political incorrectness aside, doesn’t my very existence as a top Engineering graduate debunk his theory? And shouldn’t otherwise intelligent people be aware that exceptions to his theory exist such that they render his idea untrue? Which means Summers has the power to persuade smart people to believe beyond reason – it’s a form of persuasion that’s charisma-based rather than idea-based.
Economics isn’t rocket science – there’s probably thousands of overachieving accomplished intelligent people who could be top advisor to Barack. I’m sure Summers’ll be as good as the next guy – will he be the best though, usually it takes somebody with more thorough attention to detail. That’s not this guy. But if Barack wants somebody who can insulate him from criticism then a guy who can say stupid stuff and still have people think he’s brilliant, Summers is his man.

Summers is an idiot. The so-called “data” and his interpretation of it that he cited in his infamous comment is laughablely stupid to anyone who knows basic math and statistics.
If you can’t tell when “differences” are due to chance or other explanations, you are far far too dumb to be heading the US economy.
Why do we want someone who can’t do math as a top economic adviser? He flunked out of physics early in his college career.
All Summers is is the son and nephew of a bunch of prominent economists who gave him breaks and jobs his math-challenged brain can’t handle.
His idea of an economy is one that benefits people like him. So therefore, A. nepotism, sexism and any other kind of -ism should determine who the winners are not merit and B. since A doesn’t go over well Larry doesn’t do math well, he will use both to pretend like “data” supports A. as meritocracy.
I worked my way through medical school ghostwriting research for his Harvard’s esteemed medical school faculty. I am female and they were male.
Apparently the purported “over representation” of guys at the top of science is not what it appears to be. But, as long as the credit and the money goes to them Larry Summers and co. won’t mind who really does the work!
Welcome to the New/Old Economy!

Media reports say President-elect Barack Obama has selected Eric Holder as his Attorney General, and that Holder may already have accepted the offer. Holder, as Deputy Attorney General under Janet Reno during the Clinton Administration, said that the Second Amendment does not protect an individual right, but instead protects the right to have a firearm when serving with a militia. After leaving office, Holder stuck to that assertion when he signed Janet Reno’s brief to the Supreme Court in the Heller case, which stated, “The Second Amendment does not protect firearms possession or use that is unrelated to participation in a well-regulated militia.” Can you say BYE, BYE second Amendment….

puzzled in france
lets say what you say is true,
Was there no one in the bush adm. in eight years who could have stopped this from happening on their watch?

While I certainly think that we need to respect one another and can hate speech and incendiary rhetoric, I’m not a big fan of “political correctness.” I think it stifles rather than stimulates the free exchange of ideas and ends up shifting the focus from rational, constructive discourse to personalities.
Summers seems to me to be a case in point. Instead of villifying him for his Harvard comments about women, engineering and math, why isn’t it enough to simply demonstrate that he was wrong?

socratesM,
I am from the south too, and proud of my heritage,
don’t put what you just wrote in your comments, on being from the south.
being from the south has nothing to do with what you wrote, we are smarter than that.
but i will say, i suppose you are correct when you say what you wrote was part of your heritage,
because what you just wrote was
just pig ignorant.
once again,
it had nothing to do with being from the south.

Change! It appears that Hillary had everything right all along! Right about health care (NYT recent article), right about the economy (Obama stating he will institute her economic policies) and right about foreign affairs (as in SOS appty). The only thing Hillary was missing, was anatomically related. Unfortunately in this country, as in Indonesia and China, and a host of other backwoods countries, that precludes the presidency.

All of you complaining that this is Clinton all over again, not change, etc etc. This IS change…in a BIG way. It’s been 8 long years since we’ve had people in office who knew their ass from a whole in the wall. Obama promised change, not new faces. When I think of change, I think of competency, accountability, effectiveness and efficiency, transparency, an ability to put “sides” aside and get things done, and a return of ethics, morality and respect for the Constitution. On all of those fronts, Obama is way ahead of the game. As for those of you who have a problem with revisiting some of the Clintonites, try to remember these are the most recent guys to have gotten it right on the economy, jobs and these are the guys who left GW with the trillion dollar SURPLUS that he burned thru in no time flat, only to leave us now 3 trillion IN DEBT. I have no problem with people who know what they’re doing because they’ve actually done it, and can hit it running. Think about it from that perspective and maybe you’ll realize “change” has more than 1 definition.

Change? The change for America on
Jan. 20, 2009, will be to have an
extremely bright President who listens
to those who disagree with him — and
surrounds himself with extraordinarily competent people who will, unlike Colin
Powell, be allowed to serve without
their integrity being compromised in
the course of their service.

From The New Republic:
—–Radelet, a onetime Harvard economist who worked for both Summers and Geithner. “I’d worked on [the memo] for days and days. He read it in a minute and a half. He looked at me, saying, ‘I don’t agree with your argument. But, if I were making your argument, I could have made it better.—–
Just to substantiate my take that Summers is NOT a policy wonk with thorough attention to detail, consider his response to this substantive memo – rather than rebut it on the merits, he pulled rank and made it all about him.
Are we all confident that when some underling approaches him with a memo documenting potential dangers of say like a subprime mortgate industry possibly taking down the economy in the event of a housing bubble bursting, he’s not just going to dismiss it as being disagreeable and an argument he could have made better?

Also from The New Republic:
—–”Geithner accomplished this with his usual light touch. “He would do this thing: ‘I’m not that good at math, I don’t know anything about this but …’ and whack you with these awesome questions that made clear he understood the issue better than anyone in the room,” says another former colleague.”—–
Just to follow up with evidence of what I perceive to be somebody who DOES in fact have a thorough attention to detail is this description of Geithner given by one of HIS former colleagues.
That he’s risen so far so fast by NOT touting his own horn but rather by being recognized as somebody who raises concerns that nobody else has thought of is really the most you can ask for out of anybody.
People are concerned that he’s a bit of a mystery because his views aren’t known. But generally thorough people tend to be quite flexible in their views, not particularly wed to ideology unless it’s the one appropriate to the given issue of the moment. Hopefully this is what we’ll see out of him during the confirmation hearings anyway . . .

I actually am very glad Obama didn’t pick Summers, for a variety of other reasons, but I’m quite tired now of the lazy media getting wrong Summers’ statements about women in math and science. Tapper’s shorthand here:
“might not be as inherently apt at engineering and math”
is incorrect (though goodness knows he’s only the umpteenth reporter who’s flubbed it. What he actually did in that talk was quote a study that showed men and women were EQUALLY apt in math, but there was wider VARIANCE among men, and thus the outer tails of the distribution produced more men who were *exceptional* at math.

Didn’t the two researchers whose work Summers cited in his speech as being the foundation of his conclusion that there were innate aptitude differences between men and women basically call Summers an ignorant clown for misinterpreting their data?
And what was with that speech anyway – he seems like the type of person who deliberately convolutes talk to make himself sound more intelligent and knowledgeable than he really is.
jmo but if he couldn’t handle triple integrals in the hypothetical nth dimension or whatever as a physics undergrad, should he really be talking about who is and isn’t in the fourth standard deviation of math?

PS Are only some people are interpreting Summers remarks as questioning womens’ intelligence in math and science relative to men or is everybody interpreting it that way because that was in fact his point with the issue being whether or not his point was in fact true?
Because I thought it was the latter – the NYT is saying he wasn’t saying that, although they didn’t specify what exactly it was they thought he was saying. Weird . . .
By the by, there’s even fewer blacks in Engineering proportional to population than women . . . wouldn’t you have thought Barack would wonder what Summers must think about that? I don’t know . . .