Dear Lord, Anyone but Lawrence Summers . . .
I read articles like these with dread and horror:
“As the White House begins to ponder whether to reappoint or replace Ben Bernanke when his term expires in January, the Federal Reserve chairman’s standing on Wall Street is on the rise while attacks on him from Congress mount.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is expected to play a key role in advising President Barack Obama on whether to reappoint Mr. Bernanke. Mr. Geithner has worked closely both with Mr. Bernanke and with the leading alternative for the powerful post — Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury secretary, who is currently the president’s top economic adviser.
Before making a decision later this year, the White House also is expected to look at other economists, including Roger Ferguson and Alan Blinder, former Fed vice chairmen; Janet Yellen, president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank; and Christina Romer, chairman of Mr. Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers.”
So help me God, if Obama nominates this incompetent, lacking-in-judgment jackboot to the FOMC chair, then in 2012, I will write in George W. Bush’s name for President . . .
>
Source:
White House Ponders Bernanke’s Future
JON HILSENRATH, SUDEEP REDDY and DAVID WESSEL
WSJ, July 9, 2009
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124709730991015099.html
July 8th, 2009 at 11:18 pm
I believe Larry Kudlow has enthusiastically endorsed Lawrence for the job because Larry believes Lawrence will take a stand for “King dollar”. [Just nevermind that $1 billion hit Harvard took in their endowment fund recently...]
July 8th, 2009 at 11:21 pm
Summers probably has Obama completely snowed. He (Obama) doesn’t have a clue what’s really going on as the info is filtered through the likes of Geithner and Summers.
I have this fantasy that the Prez and most, if not all, of Congress takes a 2 week retreat during which they do nothing but bone up on what the blogosphere has been saying for the last couple of years. After which they come out and look at all their advisors and economists and say, “What the f&ck?!! You guys are completely incompetent! Somebody really did know this was coming.” And then they take us down the right path for a change.
Hey, a guy can dream, can’t he?
July 8th, 2009 at 11:22 pm
This is why I come here! Good olde fashion facts and comic! “I will write in George W. Bush’s name for President . . .
July 8th, 2009 at 11:22 pm
“I will write in George W. Bush’s name for President”
I believe he’s constitutionally prevented from another turn. But if we are going to stretch things, why not a fictional charater such as Homer Simpson? I’m sure the North Koreans would just have a ball with him. “D’oh!”
July 8th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
BR’s comment about GWB is only a expression of utter disatisfaction- Obama has continued unabated policy as usual- same suspects favored- regardless of the BS that was spoken during the campaign- a colossal failure so far-
my opinion- is- he is a lightweight against heavyweight opposition and has the wrong man in the corner-
and the fight doctor better be on his toes- because a few more missteps and he may be down for the count
July 8th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
Barry,
If Obama pulls this stunt, what makes you so sure you’ll be voting in 2012?
As an aside, while his press honeymoon continues unabated, Obama’s poll numbers indicate he’s slipping, particularly in swing states. With no higher job to shoot for, we’ll finally find out if the guy is competent at something other than promoting himself for higher office…sorta like Bush in 2001.
If it were not so important, I’d laugh at a nation that replaced a folksie sounding amateur with an an amateur who had mastered the teleprompter.
July 8th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
Right after I penned my post above I went to Mish’s blog and saw this last line of this post:
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/07/states-use-stimulus-money-for-short.html
“The administration needs to fire all its experts and start reading a few more blogs.”
Ha! I thought that was very funny timing.
July 8th, 2009 at 11:46 pm
The usual suspects. Sheesh.
July 8th, 2009 at 11:47 pm
Speaking of reading ” articles like these with dread and horror” here another piece of magic from our Wall Street welfare queens.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aeTzfvEedKpQ
July 9th, 2009 at 12:06 am
We’re screwed. BO might have been OK had he been dropped into the middle of a foreign policy crisis but he is in way over his head on the economy. We should have known we were in trouble with the Geithner appointment – what a weasel – and the nail in the coffin was the marginalization of Volker who it now seems clear was brought in merely for window dressing…
I’ve never seen so many half-baked, ill-conceived economic policies, speaking of which, I’m so pissed off about this ‘cash for clunkers’ thing (which may or may not have BO’s imprimatur) I can’t see straight. Why should my neighbor with a household income of $170-180K receive a $3500-4500 subsidy from the federal govt for replacing an aging pickup truck that he was about to replace ANYWAY? Unfuckingbelievable.
Ya listening, BO? Take Mish’s advice and start reading some blogs.
July 9th, 2009 at 12:08 am
Summers as Fed Chairman? Sucks for you, unless you’re short. See you at SPX 150.
July 9th, 2009 at 12:18 am
Such drama and hysterics. Relax, Barry. Considering other names besides the incumbent is part of the process–like interviewing 6 candidates for a position you’re going to give your cousin anyway. At any rate, Larry would never make it through Congress after what he said about women being bad at math. 2010 is an election year, after all.
July 9th, 2009 at 12:20 am
So help me God, if Obama nominates this incompetent, lacking-in-judgment jackboot to the FOMC chair, then in 2012, I will write in George W. Bush’s name for President . . .
This is how Modern Liberals get converted to Traditional Liberalism…
July 9th, 2009 at 12:26 am
First thing that came to mind was Darth Vader saying “The circle is now complete.”
July 9th, 2009 at 12:42 am
I cannot see how this is a surprise to folks here. Ever since Obama was on the campaign trail he surrounded himself with plutocrats like Rubin and so-called “economic advisers” like Goolsebee, Manikw, Cutler and Liebman, and was given the good corporate stooge approval by Wall Street.
His choice in associates should have scared the day lights out of most Americans given their hostility to the working and middle-class but they were to enamored of his manufactured persona.
Furthermore when you factor in Obama’s support of Geithner’s repeated stonewalling in front of Congress when ask where the TARP/TALC funds went it adds to a man who is firmly in the pocket of the major financial houses.
IMO expect the worse from Obama and his Wall Street masters and you won’t be surprised.
July 9th, 2009 at 12:51 am
Interesting coincidental comment on BO as Hoover:
http://www.newdeal20.org/?p=3027
July 9th, 2009 at 1:28 am
“Summers probably has Obama completely snowed. He (Obama) doesn’t have a clue what’s really going on as the info is filtered through the likes of Geithner and Summers.”
The man from Troy has hit the nail on the head. Forget convoluted conspiracy theories. The One is just in over His head. Sometimes the simple explanation is the right one. Look at His public comments — it is obvious they were spoonfed by Summers. Remember that obnoxious comment He made about the “spending” being the point of the stimulus (sic) bill? A little Keynesian nugget straight from Summers brain and out the mouth of the One.
July 9th, 2009 at 1:29 am
@Mike
Interesting, because I’ve been on a three day New Deal binge reading Arthur Schlesinger Jr’s three part classic “The Age of Roosevelt.” 1700 pages dealing with the late 1920s bubble to FDR’s 1936 reelection. The relevant work is part two, “The Coming of the New Deal.” (1958) Schlesinger makes the point that FDR resisted advice to be radical–in fact, many liberals wanted him to nationalize the banks for good, but FDR was not interested. Here is what Schlesinger says about the days around March 4, 1933, when the entire banking system had ground to a halt and the administration was working on the Emergency Banking Act:
p. 5: “On the night before Congress convened (March 8), Senators Robert M. La Follette, Jr., of Wisconsin and Edward P. Costigan of Colorado, two leading progressives, called at the White House to urge Roosevelt to establish a truly national banking system. But they found Roosevelt’s mind made up. “That isn’t necessary at all,” La Follette later recalled Roosevelt saying. “I’ve just had every assurance of cooperation from the bankers.” The very moneychangers, whose flight from their high seats in the temple the President had so grandiloquently proclaimed in his inaugural address, were now swarming through the corridors of the Treasury.”
So it seems history is quite a bit more complex than we learn in high school.
July 9th, 2009 at 1:40 am
[...]Ben Bernanke when his term expires in January…
What makes you think there will be a FED in January, or that any of those crows will be anywhere near the US at the time?
Seriously
July 9th, 2009 at 1:59 am
So much for change, eh? I guess “yes, we can” meant “yes, we can continue politics as usual”.
The new prez seems just more of the same. Let’s all just admit it – the market is manipulated and owned by the big guys in the Wall Street club. Summers, Geithner, Paulson, ad infinitum are just the latest Wall Street cads to rotate into government. Obama is one of the “in crowd” and all of us little guys are being fleeced like sleeping sheep.
July 9th, 2009 at 4:20 am
Off topic (again):
OK, what does this story say about the economy?
Stockbroker jumps to death wearing designer suit and holding glass of champagne
July 9th, 2009 at 5:15 am
“lacking-in-judgment jackboot”…LMFAO
I can see the confirmation hearings now…
Committee member: “Mr Summers, your resume looks sound on paper, seems like you’re a Harvard guy like the President, but it worries me that your policy decisions in the past have led some to describe you as a “lacking-in-judgment jackboot “, can you elaborate”?
Summers (gruffly): “Eh, f*** ck off, and they’d better not give the position to that bitch Janet Yellen!”
July 9th, 2009 at 5:39 am
Relax, it’s ballooning season in DC.
Rahm wants to spend all the political capital, aggressively, on everything possible to show accomplishments, successes by the midterms in ‘10 ( about another year) so they launched this “Third Way” media balloon:
1) If the WH supports Chairman Bernanke too much, he looks like a shoe-in and that belies the general view that “the economy is bad.”
2) If they don’t support Bernanke the “The Street” is upset that their new hero is out and uncertainty reigns (not too mention – but I will – “The Street” would never credit a “Socialist” with the turnaround so they give all credit to the Fed Chairman)
But notice the optics: how adding the other names makes it less a Bernanke vs Summers battle. This tells me to bet on Ben Bernanke (unless we slip back to March ‘09… which we won’t.)
July 9th, 2009 at 5:40 am
I would not trust Geithner with a lemonade stand. The MF would dip into the till, I guarantee it. He’s a cheat.
We had better hope like hell that they reappoint Bernanke. I agree with comments above that Obama only knows what Summers and Geithner tell him.
As for Volcker…if I were him, I would resign immedately from whatever position he currently has with the Administration before this whole damn thing goes to crap; otherwise, if he stays around he will get tainted along with the rest for what…..nothing. They aren’t listening, so I say, fuck’em!!
By the way, I am already convinced Obama is a one-term President. He has disappointed me on Re-regulation, TBTF and surrounding himself with bankster puppets. The only thing that will have CHANGED in 2012 will be a massive (paralyzing) debt, record crime levels, record unemployment rates, a blackmailing financial system, severely deficient tax receipts and spotty/anemic growth.
IMO, his goose is already cooked. Believe it or not, things will be worse in 2012 than they are now! You can’t continue to make all the wrong decisions and expect things to get better just because you want them too. And they won’t!
July 9th, 2009 at 5:45 am
Relax, it’s ballooning season in DC.
Rahm wants to spend all the political capital, aggressively, on everything possible to show accomplishments, successes by the midterms in ‘10 (they’ve got about another twelve months) so for the FOMC head, they launched this “Third Way” media balloon:
1) If the WH supports Chairman Bernanke too much, he looks like a shoe-in and that belies the general view that “the economy is bad.”
2) If they don’t support Bernanke the “The Street” is upset that their new hero is out and uncertainty reigns (not too mention – but I will – “The Street” would never credit a “Socialist” with the turnaround so they give all credit to the Fed Chairman)
But notice the optics: adding the other names makes it less a Bernanke vs Summers battle. This tells me to bet on Ben Bernanke (unless we slip back to March ‘09… which we won’t.)
July 9th, 2009 at 5:46 am
You know???
The more I think about it, the more this whole “team” (Obama – Geithner – Summers – Bernanke) reminds me of watching an NFL team with T.O. on it…
I mean think about it…Right now you have Obama playing the role of Jerry Jones (Dallas Cowboys owner), he’s gotta decide if it is better for the team to stand back and ‘hopefully’ have it work out in a way that Tony Romo & T.O. get along and that the primadonna T.O. won’t cause too many locker room disruptions…
You know the primadonna Summers (T.O.) would love the job as Fed chief…And you know that if Bernanke gets re-instated, then Summers is probably going to go off and pout in the corner…Geithner is just doing his best Tony Romo and saying to himself “please, please dear God keep the attention off of me & my incompetence and total propensity to “choke” under pressure”…
Whatever…at least we have some COMEDY to look forward to…
BTW – T.O. ended up in Buffalo…
July 9th, 2009 at 5:53 am
@VennData
“But notice the optics: how adding the other names makes it less a Bernanke vs Summers battle. This tells me to bet on Ben Bernanke (unless we slip back to March ‘09… which we won’t.)”
JMO – but I’ll take the other side of that bet (well – some of it at least)…Sure, Bernanke will be the “calmest” choice, but I DO think we slip back to March ‘09 before the year is over (and we take out the 666 low)…
So that is going to ratchet up the pressure…Things are NEVER easy…& the Administration will certainly be looking for a scapegoat…It will be the final testimony to their utter incompetence if they react to the next phase of the crisis by replacing Bernanke with Summers (and make BB the whipping boy)…
July 9th, 2009 at 6:16 am
…let me put this to you another way…
The VERY IDEA that Larry Summers’ name is in the mix PROVES his arrogance & incompetence…
If Summers is supposedly the President’s “economic advisor”, then the best advice would be to NOT ROCK THE BOAT while we are in the midst of a delicate economic situation (which is likely to endure for quite awhile)…
It is as clear as crystal that the markets would be “spooked” by an announcement that we were replacing the Fed Chief…Summers (if he had a clue), should know this…Therefore, he should RECUSE himself from nomination…
The fact that he hasn’t, yet, makes him an “incompetent, lacking-in-judgment jackboot ” until proven otherwise…
July 9th, 2009 at 8:18 am
F411:
In my post-”high school reading”, which probably took place while you were in diapers, the term “nationalize” generally meant something more socialist or communist than what is being discussed today and that is probably the sense in what it is used in the passage you cite. He did close the banks and impose major, tough new regulations on them, which, at the time, was considered extremely radical, leading to his being branded as a red by the right wing and the formation of a more or less permanent opposition to the New Deal among the moneyed classes. I imagine the atmosphere was much like one would see on Fox News today, if one were stupid enough to watch it. I recommend Once in Golconda for an idea of what shenanigans were then not even considered unethical, much less illegal.
The distinction is that now Obama hasn’t done anything radical other than feed the banks huge amounts of taxpayer money with nothing in return, not even a good permanent set of regulations. as we have seen, they are repaying the TARP as quickly as possible to escape all the “government interference” in free enterprise.
I think people like Krugman or whoever first used the term i”nationalize” in connection with the current crisis showed his political deafness in using a term that could obviously be latched onto by the neo-nazis that I hear on talk radio in Houston every day. To someone who was a child of the 1950’s, it has a completely different meaning than how the economists are using it currently. Government in post-war Britain nationalized many of the major industries, e.g. coal and transportation. This meant that they became state owned and state run without any real prospect that they would ever be private again. This is what the term brings to mind in those who lived through those times. See
http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Nationalized+industries
“Nationalize” in the current context means nothing more what the FDIC does on a small scale every week and what the RTC did in the 1980’s-90’s. The RTC was created under a Republican administration. Can’t remember if it was Reagan or Bush I, but it when you weren’t aware of such things, if you had been born. It was extremely successful in clearing up the last big banking mess involving overvalued real estate and didn’t cost a whole heck of a lot because it did not pay crooks to take over their businesses.
July 9th, 2009 at 8:30 am
Had another long and eloquent post eaten. Maybe there is a pro-F411 filter in place.
July 9th, 2009 at 8:30 am
… the only real hope here would be for Ron Paul’s assault on the Fed to bear fruit and hobble the monster instead of granting it even more godlike powers than it already has. Of course, if the Fed were more constrained, Summers would not want the job and go back to wrecking the economy from his current perch in the White House.
But given the example from the primaries of how competent Ron Paul is at managing a campaign when the momentum is with him, I doubt that Larry Summers has anything to worry about.
July 9th, 2009 at 8:34 am
Look on the bright side — how’s an ultimate bear gonna make money unless we move from bad to worse?
July 9th, 2009 at 8:51 am
F411,
finally finding out about the myth of St. FDR? That dude was nothing, but a Trojan Horse for the “Moneychangers”. Hardly, was he for “The Forgotten Man.”
To your point re: H.S. ‘History’, peep would be better off reading, Aesop’s, Fables..
July 9th, 2009 at 9:37 am
“At any rate, Larry would never make it through Congress after what he said about women being bad at math.”
wow- sounds like quite the deal breaker- forget where he stands on policy- and to set the record straight-
he implied that innate differences between men and women might be one reason fewer women succeed in science and math careers-
“Nancy Hopkins, a biologist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, walked out on Summers’ talk, saying later that if she hadn’t left, ”I would’ve either blacked out or thrown up.”
wow- I am surprised she didn’t faint as well
July 9th, 2009 at 10:04 am
@Mark
Nah. Schlesinger was a HUGE Roosevelt fan and he essentially sees FDR as the only thing that saved America from a fascist or communist revolution in early 1933. FDR’s strength was that he was a pragmatist–he knew that we couldn’t allow ourselves to be paralyzed by inaction, whether that inaction was due to an ideological disinclination to do more (Hoover) or the desire to achieve perfect solutions every time (the extremists). President Obama has learned his history well, and I quite agree with him that what this country needed in 1933, and what it needs today, is action.
July 9th, 2009 at 10:33 am
F411,
after a Glimmer of Hope–foolish me. Good Luck w/ that.
Please, don’t harsh your buzz, forget that Hoover *Started* the Trend of “New Deal”-style Government Intervention.
And, yes, I know Schlesinger was the Apologist-in-Chief on FDR’s pompom squad..
July 9th, 2009 at 10:41 am
You know dubya’s not eligible
July 9th, 2009 at 11:08 am
@Mike at 8:18
Yes, what the Senate progressives wanted was a complete nationalization. This had been discussed in American politics for 50 years in the Populist movement and its various successors. Farmers were essentially suffocated by a usurious system where their only access to credit was often through local banks and merchants. However, as the passage notes, FDR’s banking reforms were written in part by the banks themselves. Also, the Coming of the New Deal and the Politics of Upheaval (the next book in the series) make clear that attempts to paint FDR as ‘radical’ were a dismal failure, as they likely will be with President Obama.
@Mark
Hoover’s rep has gotten a lot of unwarranted spit and polish over the last 30 years (it started just about when the Reagan Revolution began). The fact is that Hoover didn’t intervene on behalf of the people until he had no choice. America was in the midst of a severe drought in 1930/1, and people were (in the words of Senator Borah) “literally starving.” Congress passed a bill to provide relief to these people through a grant to the Red Cross, and Hoover vetoed it on the grounds that the government should not be involved in any way in providing relief to individuals (even indirectly).
Even in mid-1932, Hoover believed he would easily defeat FDR, who he saw as a “lightweight.” After the Democratic convention, however, it became clear that FDR was a dynamo and Hoover was truly despised. Suddenly, Hoover found the ideological justification he lacked in 1931 to sign a major relief bill in July 1932 providing relief to individuals. I’m sure it had nothing to do with the fact that Americans were burning the President in effigy, right?
July 9th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Two names to know in connection with FDR
Louis Howe:
http://www.nps.gov/archive/elro/glossary/howe-louis.htm
Jim Farley:
http://www.nps.gov/archive/elro/glossary/farley-james.htm
July 9th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
I am in favor of keeping Bernanke in the Chair at the Fed as long as we still have an extradition treaty with the Fed and don’t have to hunt him down someplace else.
July 10th, 2009 at 8:07 am
[...] as Fed Chairman? Barry Ritholtz says “Fuck Hell no!” and makes some Mt Vesuvius-size threats. Please don’t [...]
July 11th, 2009 at 7:05 am
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July 20th, 2009 at 9:40 pm
[...] Dear Lord, Anyone but Lawrence Summers . . . (July 8th, 2009) [...]