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Enough with the Clinton retreads already!

FatbackFatback 6,746 Posts
edited November 2008 in Strut Central
Seriously. Um, remember change?
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  • CousinLarryCousinLarry 4,618 Posts
    Yeah, this shit is kind of weak.
  • SwayzeSwayze 14,705 Posts
    I think you spelled retards wrong.
  • FatbackFatback 6,746 Posts
    Oh and has there already been a thread about that Al-Qaeda 'house negro' video.? I just watched it.
  • kitchenknightkitchenknight 4,922 Posts
    Who are we talking about, really? I mean, besides the obvious potential nominee for Sect. of State...b, 21b, 21I mean, Holder and Emanuel worked in the Clinton Admin., but really... if you're a democrat of any renown, you probably did as well. Daschle is pretty non-clintonian, as is Biden. Don't know enough about Nepolitano...b, 21b, 21I HATE the idea of Lawrence Summers as Treasury Sect., but that has nothing to do with his treasury experience, and everything to do with his getting booted out of Harvard for putting his foot up his dickhole.
  • Jonny_PaycheckJonny_Paycheck 17,825 Posts
    Didn't Clinton himself bring a bunch of his Arkansas cronies up to Washington with him, and eventually had to replace them with more seasoned pros?b, 21b, 21Would you prefer that Obama appoint Ludacris to Secretary of the Interior, Michael Jordan for Secretary of State (who's more well known across the world? Jordan or Hillary? Yeah, thought so) and Ozzie Guillen as Chief of Staff?b, 21b, 21
  • sabadabadasabadabada 5,966 Posts
    DONT BLAME ME, I VOTED FOR KODOS.b, 21b, 21img src="http://www.seti.housenet.org/pics/kodos.gif"1
  • Young_PhonicsYoung_Phonics 8,039 Posts
    Quote:h, 21b, 21Didn't Clinton himself bring a bunch of his Arkansas cronies up to Washington with him, and eventually had to replace them with more seasoned pros?b, 21b, 21Would you prefer that Obama appoint Ludacris to Secretary of the Interior, Michael Jordan for Secretary of State (who's more well known across the world? Jordan or Hillary? Yeah, thought so) and Ozzie Guillen as Chief of Staff?b, 21b, 21 b, 21b, 21h, 21
    b, 21b, 21b, 21srsly.
  • kidinquisitivekidinquisitive 1,627 Posts
    Quote:h, 21b, 21Oh and has there already been a thread about that Al-Qaeda 'house negro' video.? I just watched it. b, 21b, 21h, 21
    b, 21b, 21Do you think they were taking notes during that Ralph Nader interview on Fox election night?
  • Birdman9Birdman9 5,417 Posts
    Quote:h, 21b, 21DONT BLAME ME, I VOTED FOR KODOS.b, 21b, 21img src="http://www.seti.housenet.org/pics/kodos.gif"1 b, 21b, 21h, 21
    b, 21b, 21I seem to recall some "I told you so"s you were going to lord over Soul Strut after McCain smashed Obama in the election (Waxidermy thread a couple of months back). Hmmmmm.....? How does it feel to back a losing/fading/dying team?b, 21b, 21Sorry, had to ask.
  • UnherdUnherd 1,880 Posts
    People are definitely jumping the gun. Were talking about people who worked for the Clintons, not W. b, 21b, 21The "change" here is hiring experienced capable people, who will now take their orders from Barack Obama. The opposite of change would have been appointing inexperienced cronies who aren't remotely qualified, like say putting some guy you know who judges horse shows in charge of FEMA....
  • Birdman9Birdman9 5,417 Posts
    Quote:h, 21b, 21People are definitely jumping the gun. Were talking about people who worked for the Clintons, not W. b, 21b, 21The "change" here is hiring experienced capable people, who will now take their orders from Barack Obama. The opposite of change would have been appointing inexperienced cronies who aren't remotely qualified, like say putting some guy you know who judges horse shows in charge of FEMA.... b, 21b, 21h, 21
    b, 21b, 21In Brownie's defense, they were Arabian horses I believe, and he was doing a heck of a job.
  • Garcia_VegaGarcia_Vega 2,428 Posts
    From Alternet but still a good, thorough, article/a1
  • verb606verb606 2,518 Posts
    Quote:h, 21b, 21
    Quote:h, 21b, 21People are definitely jumping the gun. Were talking about people who worked for the Clintons, not W. b, 21b, 21The "change" here is hiring experienced capable people, who will now take their orders from Barack Obama. The opposite of change would have been appointing inexperienced cronies who aren't remotely qualified, like say putting some guy you know who judges horse shows in charge of FEMA.... b, 21b, 21h, 21
    b, 21b, 21In Brownie's defense, they were Arabian horses I believe, and he was doing a heck of a job. b, 21b, 21h, 21
    b, 21b, 21b, 21Don't you mean A-rabian horses?
  • rootlesscosmorootlesscosmo 12,848 Posts
    Quote:h, 21b, 21Who are we talking about, really? I mean, besides the obvious potential nominee for Sect. of State...b, 21b, 21I mean, Holder and Emanuel worked in the Clinton Admin., but really... if you're a democrat of any renown, you probably did as well. Daschle is pretty non-clintonian, as is Biden. Don't know enough about Nepolitano...b, 21b, 21I HATE the idea of Lawrence Summers as Treasury Sect., but that has nothing to do with his treasury experience, and everything to do with his getting booted out of Harvard for putting his foot up his dickhole. b, 21b, 21h, 21
    b, 21b, 21please to explain how Lawrence Summers' tenure at Harvard and the circumstances of his departure would lead you to "HATE" his appointment to treasury. I'm genuinely curious.
  • kitchenknightkitchenknight 4,922 Posts
    Quote:h, 21b, 21
    Quote:h, 21b, 21Who are we talking about, really? I mean, besides the obvious potential nominee for Sect. of State...b, 21b, 21I mean, Holder and Emanuel worked in the Clinton Admin., but really... if you're a democrat of any renown, you probably did as well. Daschle is pretty non-clintonian, as is Biden. Don't know enough about Nepolitano...b, 21b, 21I HATE the idea of Lawrence Summers as Treasury Sect., but that has nothing to do with his treasury experience, and everything to do with his getting booted out of Harvard for putting his foot up his dickhole. b, 21b, 21h, 21
    b, 21b, 21please to explain how Lawrence Summers' tenure at Harvard and the circumstances of his departure would lead you to "HATE" his appointment to treasury. I'm genuinely curious. b, 21b, 21h, 21
    b, 21b, 21b, 21Ummm... Well, given that 'change,' is the theme of this campaing, and people are genuinely moved by the sense of equality in seeing a viable woman candidate, followed by the first black president, it would seem to me that a man who left the post as president of the nation's most famous university under very public accusations of sexism, would seem to run contrary to the feeling of the nation.
  • rootlesscosmorootlesscosmo 12,848 Posts
    Quote:h, 21b, 21
    Quote:h, 21b, 21
    Quote:h, 21b, 21Who are we talking about, really? I mean, besides the obvious potential nominee for Sect. of State...b, 21b, 21I mean, Holder and Emanuel worked in the Clinton Admin., but really... if you're a democrat of any renown, you probably did as well. Daschle is pretty non-clintonian, as is Biden. Don't know enough about Nepolitano...b, 21b, 21I HATE the idea of Lawrence Summers as Treasury Sect., but that has nothing to do with his treasury experience, and everything to do with his getting booted out of Harvard for putting his foot up his dickhole. b, 21b, 21h, 21
    b, 21b, 21please to explain how Lawrence Summers' tenure at Harvard and the circumstances of his departure would lead you to "HATE" his appointment to treasury. I'm genuinely curious. b, 21b, 21h, 21
    b, 21b, 21b, 21Ummm... Well, given that 'change,' is the theme of this campaing, and people are genuinely moved by the sense of equality in seeing a viable woman candidate, followed by the first black president, it would seem to me that a man who left the post as president of the nation's most famous university under very public accusations of sexism, would seem to run contrary to the feeling of the nation. b, 21b, 21h, 21
    b, 21b, 21were the dude a genuine sexist, sure. but are you even aware of what went down? it was nonsense. I'm pretty sure most Obama voters would have no problem at all with this dude's appointment.
  • kitchenknightkitchenknight 4,922 Posts
    Quote:h, 21b, 21
    Quote:h, 21b, 21
    Quote:h, 21b, 21
    Quote:h, 21b, 21Who are we talking about, really? I mean, besides the obvious potential nominee for Sect. of State...b, 21b, 21I mean, Holder and Emanuel worked in the Clinton Admin., but really... if you're a democrat of any renown, you probably did as well. Daschle is pretty non-clintonian, as is Biden. Don't know enough about Nepolitano...b, 21b, 21I HATE the idea of Lawrence Summers as Treasury Sect., but that has nothing to do with his treasury experience, and everything to do with his getting booted out of Harvard for putting his foot up his dickhole. b, 21b, 21h, 21
    b, 21b, 21please to explain how Lawrence Summers' tenure at Harvard and the circumstances of his departure would lead you to "HATE" his appointment to treasury. I'm genuinely curious. b, 21b, 21h, 21
    b, 21b, 21b, 21Ummm... Well, given that 'change,' is the theme of this campaing, and people are genuinely moved by the sense of equality in seeing a viable woman candidate, followed by the first black president, it would seem to me that a man who left the post as president of the nation's most famous university under very public accusations of sexism, would seem to run contrary to the feeling of the nation. b, 21b, 21h, 21
    b, 21b, 21were the dude a genuine sexist, sure. but are you even aware of what went down? it was nonsense. I'm pretty sure most Obama voters would have no problem at all with this dude's appointment. b, 21b, 21h, 21
    b, 21b, 21Dude, I lived in Cambridge at the time, and it was all over the news...hence, i probably have a long memory or this than most. Anyway, it wasn't just what was said, but a general feeling of a lack of sensitivity on the part of L. Summers regarding what was said, and how he handled.b, 21b, 21Again, due to my geography at the time, I probably have a longer memory of this than most, and hey, i'm just a TV guy who spends his free time on a record site, so whatever.
  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    Is he the guy who said women weren't smart enough to do science?
  • kitchenknightkitchenknight 4,922 Posts
    Quote:h, 21b, 21Is he the guy who said women weren't smart enough to do science? b, 21b, 21h, 21
    b, 21b, 21in so many words...
  • rootlesscosmorootlesscosmo 12,848 Posts
    Quote:h, 21b, 21Is he the guy who said women weren't smart enough to do science? b, 21b, 21h, 21
    b, 21b, 21right. that's the equivalent of saying Obama said he was planning on bombing Pakistan.b, 21b, 21what Summers suggested was that womens' lamentable underrepresentation in the physical sciences may have a chemical component. it's a fairly uncontroversial notion that womens' brains work differently than men's, but his remark was nonetheless seized upon by faculty members harboring other, totally unrelated grievances toward him (ciriculum, etc.-r) and used to accuse him of sexism.b, 21b, 21and he didn't handle it as graciously as some would have hoped.b, 21b, 21if this is the type of nitpicky shit we will use to disqualify Obama's cabinet nominees by, he will have a a pretty boring cabinet. maybe that's a good thing.
  • mrmatthewmrmatthew 1,575 Posts
    Quote:h, 21b, 21Seriously. Um, remember change? b, 21b, 21h, 21
    b, 21b, 21Agreed. b, 21The Clintons and all of thier 'boomer d-bag hangers-on need to face the fact that neither Hillary nor Bill will ever attain that Kennedy like mystique that they seem to be chasing.b, 21Its over for them.b, 21Plaese to fade away quietly.
  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    Quote:h, 21b, 21
    Quote:h, 21b, 21Is he the guy who said women weren't smart enough to do science? b, 21b, 21h, 21
    b, 21b, 21right. that's the equivalent of saying Obama said he was planning on bombing Pakistan.b, 21b, 21what Summers suggested was that womens' lamentable underrepresentation in the physical sciences may have a chemical component. it's a fairly uncontroversial notion that womens' brains work differently than men's, but his remark was nonetheless seized upon by faculty members harboring other, totally unrelated grievances toward him (ciriculum, etc.-r) and used to accuse him of sexism.b, 21b, 21and he didn't handle it as graciously as some would have hoped.b, 21b, 21if this is the type of nitpicky shit we will use to disqualify Obama's cabinet nominees by, he will have a a pretty boring cabinet. maybe that's a good thing. b, 21b, 21h, 21
    b, 21b, 21We already have Joe Biden to make those kinds of stupid statements. b, 21b, 21That women tend to be more right brain (creative thinkers) than men has little or nothing to do with their underrepresentation in the sciences.b, 21b, 21I'll excuse him of sexism if you will admit that he is uninformed about the issues he was hired to deal with. b, 21b, 21Why not pick people who are well informed and able to handle blunders graciously?
  • rootlesscosmorootlesscosmo 12,848 Posts
    Quote:h, 21b, 21
    Quote:h, 21b, 21
    Quote:h, 21b, 21Is he the guy who said women weren't smart enough to do science? b, 21b, 21h, 21
    b, 21b, 21right. that's the equivalent of saying Obama said he was planning on bombing Pakistan.b, 21b, 21what Summers suggested was that womens' lamentable underrepresentation in the physical sciences may have a chemical component. it's a fairly uncontroversial notion that womens' brains work differently than men's, but his remark was nonetheless seized upon by faculty members harboring other, totally unrelated grievances toward him (ciriculum, etc.-r) and used to accuse him of sexism.b, 21b, 21and he didn't handle it as graciously as some would have hoped.b, 21b, 21if this is the type of nitpicky shit we will use to disqualify Obama's cabinet nominees by, he will have a a pretty boring cabinet. maybe that's a good thing. b, 21b, 21h, 21
    b, 21b, 21We already have Joe Biden to make those kinds of stupid statements. b, 21b, 21That women tend to be more right brain (creative thinkers) than men has little or nothing to do with their underrepresentation in the sciences. Little Little? Sure; sexism accounts for most of it. Nothing? Well, that was Summers' point. It's taboo, but he wanted people to think about it critically. Inexcusable, I know.[/b] b, 21b, 21I'll excuse him of sexism if you will admit that he is uninformed about the issues he was hired to deal with. b1I admit he is not a scientist and prolly should never have said what he said.[/b]b, 21b, 21Why not pick people who are well informed and able to handle blunders graciously? b1By all accounts he would be at Treasury if Obama were to select him; for that he's widely considered qualified.[/b]b, 21b, 21h, 21
  • Garcia_VegaGarcia_Vega 2,428 Posts
    From The Nation on Larry Summersb, 21b, 21"We all know in the backs of our minds that Barack Obama's incredible victory will eventually be followed by disappointment. But does it have to come so soon, and hit so hard? The answer will be yes, if Lawrence Summers is named treasury secretary in the president-elect's cabinet, as many observers believe will be the case. Summers was one of the key architects of our financial crisis -- hiring him to fix the economy makes as much sense as appointing Paul Wolfowitz to oversee the Iraq withdrawal. And when you look at the trail of economic destruction Summers left behind in other crisis-stricken countries who sought his advice in the past, then "terror" might be a more appropriate word than "disappointment."b, 21b, 21The conventional wisdom is that Summers is the "centrist" choice -- Fareed Zakaria ("I think Summers is an extraordinarily brilliant guy") and David Gergen ("Larry Summers would be superb at this job"), two titans of centrism, both weighed in Sunday on the Stephanopoulos show in favor of Summers. And yet so far the debate over Summers has been largely confined to two outrageous moments in his career: his 1991 World Bank memo calling Africa "UNDER-polluted," and his more recent declarations, while serving as president of Harvard, about women's genetic inferiority in math and science. By themselves, these two incidents might be dismissed as merely provocative in a maverick-moron sort of way, as many of Summers' supporters argue; but in the context of Summers's track record, in which he oversaw the destruction of entire economies and covered up cronyism and corruption, his Africa memo and sexist declarations aren't exceptions but rather part of a disturbing pattern.b, 21b, 21From the start, Summers has been on the wrong side of Obama's supporters. In 1982, while still a graduate student at Harvard, Summers was brought to Washington by his dissertation advisor Martin Feldstein, the supply-side economist, to serve on Ronald Reagan's Council of Economic Advisors. Those first years in the Reagan administration were crucial in the right-wing war against New Deal regulation of the banking system and financial markets -- a war that Reagan's team won, and that we're all paying for today. Although Summers eventually identified himself with the Democratic Party -- albeit the right wing of that party -- nevertheless, as the New York Times's Peter T. Kilborn wrote in 1988:b, 21b, 21He worked for 10 months as a top analyst in President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers when his mentor, Martin S. Feldstein, was running it, and his colleagues don't recall him venting anti-Reagan heresies then ....b, 21b, 21"One of the ironies of this business is that Summers's economics are quite close to Feldstein's," said William A. Niskanen, who was a member of the Feldstein council.b, 21b, 21It's ironic if you expected Summers to be a liberal Democrat -- but par for the course in the context of Summers's real record. Some fifteen years after Summers's stint in the Reaganomics war room, he reappears as one of the key villains fighting to suppress the regulatory efforts of a topb, 21b, 21official, Brooksley Born, who was trying to call attention to the dangers of the unregulated derivatives, such as credit swap defaults, which today are considered the key to the current economic crisis.b, 21b, 21But let's return to the Summers timeline. After his stint in the Reaganomics brain trust, he returned to Harvard to serve as one of the university's youngest professors. In 1988, he was Michael Dukakis's chief economic advisor, but when that campaign failed to bring Summers to power, he turned to America's great rival, the former Soviet Union, to try out his economic experiments. In 1990, Lithuania, a restive Soviet republic seeking independence, hired Summers to advise on that country's economic transformation. Poor Lithuania had no idea what it got itself into. This was Summers's first opportunity to tackle a country in economic crisis and put his wunderkind theories into practice. The results were literally suicidal: in 1990, when Summers first arrived, Lithuania's suicide rate was 26.1 per 100,000 and falling. Just five years after Summers got his hands on Lithuania's economy, life became so unbearable under the economic transition that the suicide rate nearly doubled to 45.6 per 100,000, worse than any other ex-Soviet republic in transition. In fact, it was the highest suicide rate in the world, suggesting something particularly harsh and brutal about the economic transition in that country as opposed to the others, where suffering and pain were common. Things got so bad that in 1992, after just two years of Summers-nomics, the traumatized Lithuanians voted the communist party back into power, the first East European nation to do so -- even though just a year earlier Lithuanians actually died on the streets fighting communism. b, 21b, 21Fresh off his success in Lithuania, Summers moved to the World Bank, where he was named the chief economist in 1991, the year he issued his famous let's-pollute-Africa memo. It was also the year that Summers, and his Harvard protg Andrei Schleifer (who worked with Summers on the Lithuania economic transformation), began their catastrophic "rescue" of Russia's crisis-ridden economy. It's a complicated story involving corruption, cronyism and economic devastation. But by the end of the 1990s, Russia's GDP had collapsed by more than 60 percent, its population was suffering the worst death-to-birth ratio of any industrialized nation in the twentieth century, and the financial markets that Summers and Schleifer helped create had collapsed in what was then the world's biggest debt default ever. The result was the rise of Vladmir Putin and a national aversion to free markets and anything associated with Western liberalism. b, 21b, 21But that's not all. Summers, through Schleifer, was also tainted with some of that country's corruption, which resulted in a US Justice Department lawsuit against Schleifer and others. While Schleifer was being paid by US taxpayers to advise the Russians on capital markets in the 1990s, his wife, Nancy Zimmerman, bought and traded Russian equities for a Boston hedge fund she ran -- they even used Schleifer's US taxpayer-funded offices to run Zimmerman's Moscow-based hedge fund operations.b, 21b, 21How close were Larry Summers and Andrei Schleifer? According to former Boston Globe economics correspondent David Warsh, Summers and Schleifer "were among each other's best friends," and Summers taught Schleifer "as an undergraduate, sent him on to MIT for his PhD, took him along on an advisory mission to Lithuania in 1990, and in 1991, shepherded his return to Harvard as full professor, where he was regarded, after Martin Feldstein and Summers, as the leader of the next generation."b, 21b, 21In 2000, the Justice Department sought $102 million in damages from Schleifer, one of Schleifer's Harvard associates and Harvard University in a conflict-of-interest suit resulting from Schleifer's role as the lead US adviser to Russia's economic reforms -- questioning the way Schleifer and his wife profited from his position. Schleifer's Harvard team in Moscow was funded by USAID in a no-bid contract, and supported by Summers as soon as he moved into the Treasury Department in 1993. So Schleifer benefited from his relationship with Summers twice: first, by getting a choice contract as the US government's man in Moscow in the 1990s when Summers was in power in the US government, one that benefited his wife's hedge fund (earlier this year, Portfolio suggested that the Schleifers' hedge funds made them billionaires ). Then after Schleifer returned to Harvard to face the lawsuit, Summers, now president of Harvard, presided over a controversial settlement that all but let his protg off the hook. Thanks to pressure by Summers, Schleifer kept his chair at Harvard, where he continues to teach today.b, 21b, 21Summers's other favorite man in Russia was Anatoly Chubais -- who consistently ranks at the top of Russia's " most hated man" polls. Chubais was executor of the Russian government's privatization program, in which state companies worth tens of billions of dollars were handed over to insiders for a fraction of their worth in blatantly rigged auctions. Summers praised Chubais as a "demigod" and called Chubais and his free-market cohorts "the dream team." In September 1998, after Russia's capital markets collapsed, along with billions in US-taxpayer-backed loans, Chubais boasted to a Russian newspaper, "We swindled them." By "them," he meant the Western and American aid institutions that funded his reforms. b, 21b, 21In light of all of the corruption, cronyism and devastation that have marked his career, Summers' statements about an under-polluted Africa or intellectually-inferior women no longer seem like provocative eccentricities but part and parcel of the Summers shtick. And now there's talk that President-elect Obama may hand the keys to national treasury to Summers -- meaning that he'll be in charge of overseeing a trillion-dollar taxpayer bailout of the entire financial industry, a process already rife with conflicts of interest, cronyism and corruption -- as detailed by Naomi Klein.b, 21b, 21The bailout, as currently implemented, threatens to devastate America's economy much as Russia's and Lithuania's were devastated before. The idea that this is exactly the right time and place to put Larry Summers in charge of our economy's future is so frightening that it makes the Sarah Palin vice presidential choice seem almost quaint by comparison. Let's hope the rumors are wrong."
  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    Quote:h, 21b, 21From The Nation on Larry Summersb, 21b, 21"We all know in the backs of our minds that Barack Obama's incredible victory will eventually be followed by disappointment. But does it have to come so soon, and hit so hard? The answer will be yes, if Lawrence Summers is named treasury secretary in the president-elect's cabinet, as many observers believe will be the case. Summers was one of the key architects of our financial crisis -- hiring him to fix the economy makes as much sense as appointing Paul Wolfowitz to oversee the Iraq withdrawal. And when you look at the trail of economic destruction Summers left behind in other crisis-stricken countries who sought his advice in the past, then "terror" might be a more appropriate word than "disappointment."b, 21b, 21The conventional wisdom is that Summers is the "centrist" choice -- Fareed Zakaria ("I think Summers is an extraordinarily brilliant guy") and David Gergen ("Larry Summers would be superb at this job"), two titans of centrism, both weighed in Sunday on the Stephanopoulos show in favor of Summers. And yet so far the debate over Summers has been largely confined to two outrageous moments in his career: his 1991 World Bank memo calling Africa "UNDER-polluted," and his more recent declarations, while serving as president of Harvard, about women's genetic inferiority in math and science. By themselves, these two incidents might be dismissed as merely provocative in a maverick-moron sort of way, as many of Summers' supporters argue; but in the context of Summers's track record, in which he oversaw the destruction of entire economies and covered up cronyism and corruption, his Africa memo and sexist declarations aren't exceptions but rather part of a disturbing pattern.b, 21b, 21b, 21b, 21From the start, Summers has been on the wrong side of Obama's supporters. In 1982, while still a graduate student at Harvard, Summers was brought to Washington by his dissertation advisor Martin Feldstein, the supply-side economist, to serve on Ronald Reagan's Council of Economic Advisors. Those first years in the Reagan administration were crucial in the right-wing war against New Deal regulation of the banking system and financial markets -- a war that Reagan's team won, and that we're all paying for today. Although Summers eventually identified himself with the Democratic Party -- albeit the right wing of that party -- nevertheless, as the New York Times's Peter T. Kilborn wrote in 1988:b, 21b, 21b, 21b, 21b, 21He worked for 10 months as a top analyst in President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers when his mentor, Martin S. Feldstein, was running it, and his colleagues don't recall him venting anti-Reagan heresies then ....b, 21b, 21b, 21b, 21b, 21"One of the ironies of this business is that Summers's economics are quite close to Feldstein's," said William A. Niskanen, who was a member of the Feldstein council.b, 21b, 21b, 21b, 21b, 21It's ironic if you expected Summers to be a liberal Democrat -- but par for the course in the context of Summers's real record. Some fifteen years after Summers's stint in the Reaganomics war room, he reappears as one of the key villains fighting to suppress the regulatory efforts of a topb, 21b, 21official, Brooksley Born, who was trying to call attention to the dangers of the unregulated derivatives, such as credit swap defaults, which today are considered the key to the current economic crisis.b, 21b, 21b, 21b, 21b, 21But let's return to the Summers timeline. After his stint in the Reaganomics brain trust, he returned to Harvard to serve as one of the university's youngest professors. In 1988, he was Michael Dukakis's chief economic advisor, but when that campaign failed to bring Summers to power, he turned to America's great rival, the former Soviet Union, to try out his economic experiments. In 1990, Lithuania, a restive Soviet republic seeking independence, hired Summers to advise on that country's economic transformation. Poor Lithuania had no idea what it got itself into. This was Summers's first opportunity to tackle a country in economic crisis and put his wunderkind theories into practice. The results were literally suicidal: in 1990, when Summers first arrived, Lithuania's suicide rate was 26.1 per 100,000 and falling. Just five years after Summers got his hands on Lithuania's economy, life became so unbearable under the economic transition that the suicide rate nearly doubled to 45.6 per 100,000, worse than any other ex-Soviet republic in transition. In fact, it was the highest suicide rate in the world, suggesting something particularly harsh and brutal about the economic transition in that country as opposed to the others, where suffering and pain were common. Things got so bad that in 1992, after just two years of Summers-nomics, the traumatized Lithuanians voted the communist party back into power, the first East European nation to do so -- even though just a year earlier Lithuanians actually died on the streets fighting communism. b, 21b, 21Fresh off his success in Lithuania, Summers moved to the World Bank, where he was named the chief economist in 1991, the year he issued his famous let's-pollute-Africa memo. It was also the year that Summers, and his Harvard protg Andrei Schleifer (who worked with Summers on the Lithuania economic transformation), began their catastrophic "rescue" of Russia's crisis-ridden economy. It's a complicated story involving corruption, cronyism and economic devastation. But by the end of the 1990s, Russia's GDP had collapsed by more than 60 percent, its population was suffering the worst death-to-birth ratio of any industrialized nation in the twentieth century, and the financial markets that Summers and Schleifer helped create had collapsed in what was then the world's biggest debt default ever. The result was the rise of Vladmir Putin and a national aversion to free markets and anything associated with Western liberalism. b, 21b, 21b, 21b, 21But that's not all. Summers, through Schleifer, was also tainted with some of that country's corruption, which resulted in a US Justice Department lawsuit against Schleifer and others. While Schleifer was being paid by US taxpayers to advise the Russians on capital markets in the 1990s, his wife, Nancy Zimmerman, bought and traded Russian equities for a Boston hedge fund she ran -- they even used Schleifer's US taxpayer-funded offices to run Zimmerman's Moscow-based hedge fund operations.b, 21b, 21b, 21b, 21b, 21How close were Larry Summers and Andrei Schleifer? According to former Boston Globe economics correspondent David Warsh, Summers and Schleifer "were among each other's best friends," and Summers taught Schleifer "as an undergraduate, sent him on to MIT for his PhD, took him along on an advisory mission to Lithuania in 1990, and in 1991, shepherded his return to Harvard as full professor, where he was regarded, after Martin Feldstein and Summers, as the leader of the next generation."b, 21b, 21b, 21b, 21b, 21In 2000, the Justice Department sought $102 million in damages from Schleifer, one of Schleifer's Harvard associates and Harvard University in a conflict-of-interest suit resulting from Schleifer's role as the lead US adviser to Russia's economic reforms -- questioning the way Schleifer and his wife profited from his position. Schleifer's Harvard team in Moscow was funded by USAID in a no-bid contract, and supported by Summers as soon as he moved into the Treasury Department in 1993. So Schleifer benefited from his relationship with Summers twice: first, by getting a choice contract as the US government's man in Moscow in the 1990s when Summers was in power in the US government, one that benefited his wife's hedge fund (earlier this year, Portfolio suggested that the Schleifers' hedge funds made them billionaires ). Then after Schleifer returned to Harvard to face the lawsuit, Summers, now president of Harvard, presided over a controversial settlement that all but let his protg off the hook. Thanks to pressure by Summers, Schleifer kep t his chair at Harvard, where he continues to teach today.b, 21b, 21b, 21b, 21b, 21Summers's other favorite man in Russia was Anatoly Chubais -- who consistently ranks at the top of Russia's " most hated man" polls. Chubais was executor of the Russian government's privatization program, in which state companies worth tens of billions of dollars were handed over to insiders for a fraction of their worth in blatantly rigged auctions. Summers praised Chubais as a "demigod" and called Chubais and his free-market cohorts "the dream team." In September 1998, after Russia's capital markets collapsed, along with billions in US-taxpayer-backed loans, Chubais boasted to a Russian newspaper, "We swindled them." By "them," he meant the Western and American aid institutions that funded his reforms. b, 21b, 21b, 21b, 21In light of all of the corruption, cronyism and devastation that have marked his career, Summers' statements about an under-polluted Africa or intellectually-inferior women no longer seem like provocative eccentricities but part and parcel of the Summers shtick. And now there's talk that President-elect Obama may hand the keys to national treasury to Summers -- meaning that he'll be in charge of overseeing a trillion-dollar taxpayer bailout of the entire financial industry, a process already rife with conflicts of interest, cronyism and corruption -- as detailed by Naomi Klein.b, 21b, 21b, 21b, 21b, 21The bailout, as currently implemented, threatens to devastate America's economy much as Russia's and Lithuania's were devastated before. The idea that this is exactly the right time and place to put Larry Summers in charge of our economy's future is so frightening that it makes the Sarah Palin vice presidential choice seem almost quaint by comparison. Let's hope the rumors are wrong." b, 21b, 21h, 21
    b, 21b, 21Damn!b, 21b, 21We want this guy on our team why?
  • kitchenknightkitchenknight 4,922 Posts
    Quote:h, 21b, 21b, 21Damn!b, 21b, 21We want this guy on our team why? b, 21b, 21h, 21
    b, 21b, 21Because Chad likes him.
  • rootlesscosmorootlesscosmo 12,848 Posts
    Quote:h, 21b, 21
    Quote:h, 21b, 21b, 21Damn!b, 21b, 21We want this guy on our team why? b, 21b, 21h, 21
    b, 21b, 21Because Chad likes him. b, 21b, 21h, 21
    b, 21b, 21....or maybe because he is an accomplished economist whom that Nation article does not do justice.b, 21b, 21look, there are several qualified candidates I'm sure. and I'm not some Summers rider. I just think it's exceedingly lame and lazy to rule him out on the basis of the "sexist" thing or the Cornell West thing.b, 21b, 21D*n: you want this thread to be the basis of your opinion of this guy? And by that I mean one off-hand remark by kitchennight and a Nation article? Be my guest.b, 21b, 21but while we're throwing out random articles from partisan publications, let me add a few to the mix in order to give you a fuller view of the dude:b, 21b, 21 Here, /a1 here,/a1 and here./a1 b, 21b, 21or just listen to the dude for yourself for an hour:b, 21b, 21/object1
  • deejdeej 5,125 Posts
    a lot of you have no idea what you are talking about - its not about "omg this person worked for clinton!" its about which ppl who worked for clinton he gets on the team - i.e. i would easily prefer HRC over holbrooke for sec. of state, b, 21b, 21and if you want a smart rundown on holder you should read glenn greenwald's blog posts about him - hes got criticisms and kudos but largely comes out positive regarding the dude so until i hear otherwise from a source as reputable as greenwald ill be on the bandwagon w/ his selections so far.b, 21b, 21b, 21also all you ppl worried about rahm being "centrist" or something, how did you miss this:b, 21b, 21http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/Rahm_Obama_healthcare/2008/11/19/153070.html/a1b, 21b, 21Quote:h, 21b, 21President Elect Barack Obama???s incoming White House chief of staff stresses that the new administration intends to ???throw long and deep,??? right after the kick-off in January, taking advantage of the economic crisis to push dramatic changes in health care, taxes, financial re-regulation and energy.b, 21b, 21h, 21b, 21b, 21uh-oh!!! i hope hes not a centrist!!!
  • rootlesscosmorootlesscosmo 12,848 Posts
    I suspect "Strutteurs Disappointed with Obama for Doing/Choosing BLANK" will become at least a bi-weekly event on here as this administration gets going...
  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    Quote:h, 21b, 21I suspect "Strutteurs Disappointed with Obama for Doing/Choosing BLANK" will become at least a bi-weekly event on here as this administration gets going... b, 21b, 21h, 21
    b, 21b, 21Count on it.
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