Congratulations Alan Greenspan! The former fed chair, who people are hoping will die soon, has won the Dynamite Prize in Economics, which is basically what the Razzie Awards are to the Oscars. Greenspan was awarded the honor as the economist most responsible for blowing up the global economy.
Larry Summers
Larry Summers: Erin, This Sounds Like It’s An Exercise In Sadism And Who Can Cause The Most Pain
By Yaël Bizouati
Larry Summers talking shop in Davos, and waiting, just waiting, for his god damn diet Coke.
The latest issue of the New Yorker has a story on Larry Summers and his back-up dancers, i.e. Obama’s economic team. Obviously when we talk about Summers, we talk about two things: his predilection for Diet Coke and for sleeping during important meetings. Concerning the former, what does the president’s top adviser do when he wants somea that in his bloodstream, ASAP? When he’s at the White House there’s a dedicated team of servant boys whose sole purpose is to stand very still against the wall at the back of Summer’s office, loaded turkey basters in hand.* At the slightest cock of an eyebrow, the boys know what to do. (Tim Geithner has also been tasked with the responsibility of collecting Summers’ tissue spunk for chemists to analyze how elevated LS’s testosterone levels are and using the data to track down to the minute when he might get a hankering for a hit.)
It’s when Summers ventures out of the comforts of the WH–his aides don’t travel with– that things get dicey. Some offices aren’t stocked with soft drinks. Some people he takes meetings with don’t know to look for facial cues. Some amateurs who maybe don’t want to see a recovery wait until it’s too late to get the big man what he needs.
Summers looked exhausted. The previous day, he hadn’t left the White House until after midnight, and he was up at dawn to make the flight to Detroit. As Granholm talked about layoffs, he eyed a bottle of soda on the table in front of her. Summers drinks many Diet Cokes a day, and he was badly in need of one. He got up, his shirttails peeking out from underneath his jacket, and shuffled over to a counter at the side of the room in search of a caffeinated beverage. All he found was an empty glass, which he carried back to his seat. The manufacturers took turns explaining their plight. Wes Smith, of E. & E. Manufacturing, argued that although the public hates bailouts, “helping manufacturing is popular.”
As they spoke, Summers caught [Governor Jennifer] Granholm’s attention and mimed a request for some of her soda. She moved the bottle closer to him, smiling. He drank quickly, but it didn’t help. He shifted his weight in his chair. He made jerky, shaking motions with his head. He ran a hand through his hair. Still, by the time Mario Sciberras, of Saline Lectronics, was speaking about what he would do with one of the new loans, Summers was asleep. This is something of a habit: he has fallen asleep in two public meetings–and, reportedly, one private meeting–with the President this year.
Obviously there’s no one to blame here but Jennifer. So what happened next? Was the entire meeting shot to shit? Was Summers out for the next hour? Did they have to go back over everything he missed during nap time? I think not.
*There’s no time to pop open a can or unscrew a top. They’re like a firing squad back there.
What is Larry Summers’ personal motto? A-B-C. A-always, B-be, C-catnapping. Always be catnapping! Always be catnapping! Here he is putting that guiding principle into action last Friday, while the president was briefed by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate on hurricane preparedness. Now, before we jump down his throat for sleeping on the job at all times, let’s consider a few things. One– does Weather Watch really fall under his realm of expertise, to the extent he might have something to add? We say, not so much. Just let him know where to find his life vest and he’s all good. Two– this picture was taken pretty late Friday afternoon. It’d probably been a long week, and Summs usually likes to catch a few winks before getting down Friday night. All that being said, Geithner doesn’t do the guy any favors by staying not only awake but with rapt attention.
Of course, it is pretty easy after the fact to point fingers and cast aspersions. But when what would appear to be a pattern of laxity, misfeasance and perhaps even malfeasance begins to emerge out of the mist, well, things become harder to dismiss.
It seems part of the culture of the crisis that the mighty would be made to bow low. Harvard is not only no exception, it is a major recurring theme, on both sides of the blame game. The light shown on the Harvard Management Company by The Harvard Crimson is, therefore, rather a critical bit of theater.
The Crimson winds a twisted path around taxation, endowment management, off-shore entities, off-setting management fees and one Lawrence H. Summers. Take out the names and the narrative sounds quite familiar, actually:
“The general disregard for the rules, procedures and compliance–it was ridiculous,” Rose said in an interview with The Crimson. “You had to be quiet and do it and put blinders on. If you were doing work in other aspects of the company, you could just do your job. But in [my] part of the job, you couldn’t ignore things.”
Harvard Management Company–which oversees Harvard’s multi-billion dollar endowment–was plagued by a culture of ethical laxity, Rose said. Special relationships with funds run by former employees and the use of offshore investment companies–both used to boost HMC’s once-legendary returns–may not be illegal, but are considered to be ethically questionable by some, particularly in light of Harvard’s non-profit status.
HMC Tax Concerns Aided Federal Inquiries [The Harvard Crimson]
Shouldn’t these people have their fortunes locked in a poorly administered blind trust before accepting office?
Lawrence Summers’ bullish economic sentiments helped send markets soaring at the end of last week. But even after assuming his role as the president’s top economic adviser in January, Summers seemed far more skeptical that the markets would recover any time soon, as evidenced by the only metric that really counts–his own personal cash. Specifically, in 2008 through early 2009, Summers stashed most of his liquid assets in tax-free municipal bonds–between $5 million and $25 million worth–leaving himself relatively little exposure to the stock market, a Daily Beast analysis of his recently released financial-disclosure report reveals.
Of course, it is entertaining to pit Summers against Geithner, as The Beast happily proceeds to do, but we think we can be forgiven for thinking both of these two should have all their money locked in an emerging markets ETF by a 20something analyst at a foreign firm. That would, after all, be fitting, no?
What Do They Know That We Don’t? [The Daily Beast]
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