Larry Summers: Maximizing Wealth with "One of the "Greatest Minds of the Past 500 Years"

Of the past 500 years? Really? Maximizing wealth? Whose? We'll get to all that. But first, will someone kindly send me something about Larry Summers that shows him in a better light than this godawful tedious CNBC clip of him fielding soft grounders about the economy before the Economic Club (of New York, I think) on 4/9. It SO reminds me of my undergrad days at Harvard in the 1960's and the smoke and mirrors political discussions that routinely marginalized outsider views as "generating more heat than light". (Anyone else remember this phrase?) This cozy CNBC clip suggests that the old boys' network is still in fine working order today, its nexus having merely migrated northwards to Cambridge from New Haven, from whence an unbroken string of Yale graduates (Bush/Clinton/Bush) had occupied the White House for an unprecedented 20 years. (My take on the historic "Yale succession" of U.S. Presidents is here, here, here and here.)

Well, I'm getting carried away. But seriously: are video clips like this one the best that CNBC - and Summers himself - can give the American people at this critical juncture in our history?

Well I gotta rant a bit more. Just listen to the long-winded introduction (suckup?) that consumes the first two minutes of this nine-minute clip, including the moderator's paean to Summer's astounding skills as a tennis player - "his greatest talent," says the host, confessing his own need for professional training in order to beat Summers - "barely" - on a doubles court. Please. This idle talk only assures Summers that he is among friends and will not be asked any hard questions (say, about bank solvency or bank spending of government bailout money). And the warm audience response to his not-so-witty dismissal of any claim to certainty in the making of economic forecasts confirms that none are expected. I decided to scout the web a bit on this man, focusing on his ties to Wall Street. It didn't take to find a couple interesting items:

• At Econospeak (via Naked Capitalism) I found this glowing account of Summers' "stadium rock concert" and "performance art" presentation last year to Goldman Sachs. Smoke and Mirrors? For sure, it was patently a magic show. Genius? One of the greatest minds of the past 500 years? That was the take of one Monique, a Goldman employee who says “It was his entertainment that opened me up and made me receptive, but the economic vision was irreplaceable. I thought I was maximizing wealth before I heard Larry, but I didn’t know the half of it.” Maximizing wealth, huh? Whose? (4/4)


• Well, consider this. The New York Times reports that "Lawrence H. Summers, the top economic adviser to President Obama, earned more than $5 million last year from the hedge fund D. E. Shaw and collected $2.7 million in speaking fees from Wall Street companies that received government bailout money, the White House disclosed Friday in releasing financial information about top officials." OK, so Summers, as Treasury Secretary, isn't pulling in the big bucks from Wall Street. But whose wealth he is maximizing? And who is benefitting from his great wisdom? So far, it's still going to Wall Street while the Americian people, on CNBS, get jargon. (4/3)

OK already, enough ranting. Here's a challenge, stemming from the 2nd sentence of the 2nd paragraph of the New York Times' brief bio of Larry Summers, which celebrates his "deep understanding of global economic issues, at a time when the American mortgage crisis has leaped borders to become a worldwide contagion." Whoah, hold it. Can anyone show that Summers had any prior understanding of this crisis before it hit full force in 2008? What was one the greatest minds of the past 500 years saying about it in 2006 and 2007?