Comments for Larry Summers: The Wrong Person for World Bank President at http://www.cepr.net , comment 1 to 4 out of 4 comments http://www.cepr.net Tue, 18 Jun 2013 19:33:23 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/cepr-blog/larry-summers-the-wrong-person-for-world-bank-president#comment-15337 I have no idea of which version of the Larry Summers story is true. What I do know is that his arrogant and unpleasant personality has constantly made him unpopular. I doubt if he is the right man to represent the United States at the World Bank. I also remember that at Harvard he made some very bad investments that cost Harvard a lot of money. There are better choices, Mr. President. - natalie Wed, 14 Mar 2012 12:34:14 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/cepr-blog/larry-summers-the-wrong-person-for-world-bank-president#comment-15312 He's the favorite of the ruling class which is why he will probably be nominated. Reformers either don't get in or are caught in honey traps. - Carol DW Tue, 13 Mar 2012 11:16:45 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/cepr-blog/larry-summers-the-wrong-person-for-world-bank-president#comment-15303 Perhaps it is calculated politics. The natives are getting restless. In particular, Brazil is pushing for global financial institutions that are less American-centric. So Obama will nominate Larry the Hut, only to compromise on a normal American. - David B. Schuster Tue, 13 Mar 2012 03:05:06 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/cepr-blog/larry-summers-the-wrong-person-for-world-bank-president#comment-15295 In fact I loathed him for a long time, but I recently read Noam Scheiber's The Escape Artists, and I actually found Summers to be the most realistic of Obama's team, besides Romer. By Scheiber's account, Larry was pushing to punish the banks and make them accept haircuts on mortgages, but Geithner's view of protect the banks at all costs and give them 100 cents on the dollar bailouts prevailed. Larry was telling the President that the need to cut the deficit so that the confidence fairy arrives was nonsense, while Peter Orszag had Obama's ear telling him to go big on deficit reduction and to talk up the government budget like a family budget. Summers thought it was political malpractice to release specific targets for the unemployment rate with or without the stimulus, but Obama's political team made Romer and Bernstein create a memo that was then used repeatedly the GOP as justification for why the stimulus failed. There are many examples like that... so I think Summers gets a bum rap for his time in the White House. If Scheiber is correct, they really didn't listen to him all that much. But I agree his past sins are too numerous to count, and those alone should disqualify him for World Bank president. - Brett Mon, 12 Mar 2012 11:51:16 +0100