Naomi Klein Joins Anti-Summers Campaign

by: Matt Stoller

Fri Nov 07, 2008 at 16:51


( - promoted by Chris Bowers)

As part of her campaign to stop the bailout profiteers, Naomi Klein has put our petition on her home page, joining 2800 of you who have signed up to protest Larry Summers as Treasury Secretary.  It came out today that Larry Summers warmly embraced deregulation as Treasury Secretary, as Dean Baker notes.  Summers fought aggressively against pro-regulatory elements within the Clinton administration to do the industry's bidding, so it's no surprise he's now a managing director at hedge fund and private equity group DE Shaw.

Kim Gandy of NOW has issued a critical statement bringing up a point I hadn't before considered.

Matt Stoller :: Naomi Klein Joins Anti-Summers Campaign
"I'm torn on the subject. Part of me thinks his opinions on women's capacities for math and science don't have relevancy to financial markets. On the other hand, economics is a very math-heavy field. Does that mean he'd be less likely to include women in his own circle of advisers? I don't know the answer to that question; I don't know him. But I do wonder whether if his comments about women's lack of aptitude for math and science had instead been a comment or an opinion about African Americans having less capacity for math and science, would he be on anybody's short-list. That's a fair question to ask."

Summers certainly did this when pushing to keep derivatives free from regulations.  He was part of a gang of free marketeers which included Alan Greenspan, industry lobbyists, and Robert Rubin to keep a steel-spined lawyer, Brooksley E. Born, head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, from regulating derivatives even after the collapse of long-term capital management.

Born didn't back off on derivatives, either. On May 7, 1998, two weeks after her April showdown at Treasury, the commission issued a "concept release" soliciting public comment on derivatives and their risk.

The response was swift and blistering. Within hours, Greenspan, Rubin and Levitt cited their "grave concerns" in an unusual joint statement. Deputy Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers decried it before Congress as "casting a shadow of regulatory uncertainty over an otherwise thriving market."

At least one major progressive group has plans to come against Summers shortly.  This possible appointment is a travesty.  As Ian Welsh notes, Obama should pick someone who got this right.

Sign the petition here.

... Crooks and Liars has more.

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Naomi Klein Joins Anti-Summers Campaign | 17 comments
Anti-Summers Facebook Group (4.00 / 4)
Awesome to have Naomi Klein's support! She's one of my big heroes.

Just wanted to let everyone know that, inspired by Matt's petition, I created an anti-Summers Facebook group, which you can join here:

http://www.facebook.com/group....
Obama Supporters AGAINST Larry Summers, Architect of the Financial Crisis!

Keep up the good work!

Second Thoughts (0.00 / 0)
Alas, while Summers is among the more odious fixtures in the Washington establishment, there is no basis for considering the others in consideration for treasury to be much better.

Geithner is a former Kissinger protege who screwed up massively the Bear Stearns buyout.

Volcker, for those too young to remember was the first neo-liberal fed chair, single handedly creating the recession of 1978 which served its intended function of eviscerating the economy of the entire midwest.

This is who we get if Summers is not pushed through, and, while it may be had to accept given his satanic record, Summers, may be the most capable of pursuing minimally progressive policies at treasury.

In any case, if none of these are acceptable, what we need is a viable candidate who we can mobilize behind.

Not dream candidates like Krugman or Dean Baker, but someone taken seriously in the circles in question.

Any ideas?

not our job (4.00 / 1)
There are plenty of talented Treasury Secretary candidates, it's absurd to limit it to a club of 'respectable' people whose primary virtue is their closeness to corrupt elites.
[ Parent ]
Fine. (0.00 / 0)
Then you'll get Geithner or Volcker, both equally bad but who are less flamboyant in their awfulness.

I don't see this as a victory.

You don't want to be fighting battles where you lose even if you "win".

[ Parent ]
Krugman has a Nobel Prize. (4.00 / 1)
Just saying.
[ Parent ]
and (0.00 / 0)
no management skill. he himself has admitted as much.  
[ Parent ]
Stiglitz (4.00 / 1)
would be a million times better.

I have little doubt he would take it.

[ Parent ]
Overblown (0.00 / 0)
OK.  Guys.  Larry Summers didn't say anything at all bad about women in science.  That's a kind of telephone game thing that's propagated around the internet without anyone actually listening to what he actually said.  This was a huge controversy at Harvard, where I was an undergrad when this thing happened; every day, pretty much, the Crimson had a new article or op-ed about the controversy.  And honestly, there's no controversy there.  This should be a dead issue.  He suggested that the physical differences between the sexes MIGHT indicate differences in brain activity, and YES, MEN AND WOMEN HAVE BRAINS THAT WORK DIFFERENTLY, WITH DIFFERENT PARTS IN DIFFERENT SIZES.  GAY MEN OFTEN HAVE SOME PARTS THAT ARE MORE LIKE THE BRAINS OF WOMEN THAN THE BRAINS OF MEN.  ETC.  Does this impact math and science ability?  Larry Summers doesn't know.  Maybe Stephen Pinker does, but Larry Summers does not, or at least didn't at the time.  Opinions differ on the subject.  Larry Summers suggested that people should be asking and answering this question, not offering his own reason.  And he's not an idiot; he knows that just because on average, some group performs differently from some other group, it doesn't mean that individuals of one group can't be as capable as individuals from the other.  Regardless of whether women are worse at science than men in general or not, each individual case is judged on its own merits and Summers is quite aware of this.  So anyone who still has deep moral problems with what the guy said is not living in our reality-based community.

What IS worrying, though, is that Summers was kinda voted out of the Harvard presidency by the Faculty, not because of those comments but because those comments prompted a deeper look at the man who had been their President.  I think there was a big student movement to keep Summers there (though the Crimson editorial page may have disagreed, I don't remember), but the Faculty had a real problem with the way the guy was dismissive of people, or something.  I don't remember exactly what the deal was, but THAT's what perhaps ought to disqualify him, along with his views on regulation.  The women in science thing is a really dumb thing to harp on, like Obama's association with William Ayers, but his policy stances and personal temperament are pretty legitimate concerns.

How anyone that ignorant (4.00 / 2)
ever got that high up the ladder was always a mystery to me. White male privilege, I guess.

Doesn't qualify him for further promotions though, that's for sure.

Montani semper liberi

[ Parent ]
Jamie Kirchick ... (4.00 / 2)
is that you?
[ Parent ]
What are you talking about? (0.00 / 0)
Larry Summers didn't say anything at all bad about women in science.

There is no tape or transcript of the event.  His comments offended multiple attendees.  It is impossible to know exactly what he said.

Having said that, the various accounts of the event painted a picture of a blowhard who was talking out of his ass about a serious subject.

In fairness, we shouldn't rule out anyone based solely on an account that cannot be confirmed.  But the flip side of that is that nobody can say categorically that Summers DIDN'T say anything bad or that people who have a problem with his comments are "not living in our reality-based community".  Nobody other than the attendees really can say that.

[ Parent ]
Don't Remember Why??? (0.00 / 0)
This scandal seems like a pretty big damn deal for  an undergrad to have simply forgotten about it:

...Summers' close relationship with (some would say protection of) Andrei Schleifer. Schleifer is another brilliant economist who seemed to think that his brilliance allowed him trade tens of millions of dollars of Russian stocks while directing the pace and direction of Russian privatization. The US government sued Schleifer and Harvard University (where Schleifer holds a professorship and which held the USAID contract under which Schleifer worked) for fraud. Harvard settled the lawsuit and paid several million dollars to the government.

And who was President of Harvard when the university decided to settle the lawsuit? Larry Summers. It is not unreasonable speculation that Harvard settled the lawsuit the way it did in order to protect the friend of the President. It's also not unreasonable to suggest that this, not anything about public statements, was the cause of Summers' downfall from the Harvard Presidency.

This guy obviously agrees with you about the public statements being a moot point, but he certainly doesn't think they had anything to do with him being fired.

Nonetheless, without even remembering what this was all about, you were SPOT ON about this being the thing that should disqualify him!!!


We the People...participating in our democracy again!

[ Parent ]
Thanks for creating the petition, Matt. I just signed it. (0.00 / 0)

What's the Signature Count? (0.00 / 0)
I've tried to return and find the count, and remember seeing one when I signed - but was rather disappointed that I couldn't find what the current tally is!

If asking to have that show up there somewhere is too much, then perhaps you could give an eager girl an update???  

We the People...participating in our democracy again!

More thoughts (0.00 / 0)
I hope the interest in this topic is sincere: the stakes for the country (with hundreds of millions of people) and the world (with billions) are huge.  

Here some things to consider:
1. He never said women were stupid.
http://www.president.harvard.e...
Please look for this phrase if that is too long: "I would like nothing better than to be proved wrong"
2. Vis-a-vis women advisors, please.  His mother completed her PhD in Economics from the UofChicago in the 1940s when sexism was VERY entrenched.  She is a true whiz-bang and Larry knows it--she saw to it that he was tutored in math as a child.
3. that Enron letter promises nothing.  At high levels, writting nice letters that promise nothing is de rigeur.  He gets an A+
4. The Schleifer business is probably the most worrisome thing about Larry--the possibility of rule bending for friends is iffy.

Not everyone wants the Treasury job and we desperately need someone good.  Summers has strong talents and something of a track record.  He also has spent the last few years writting in The Financial Times, so read those columns and see what he says.  A lot of it is about dealing with our current messes in ways that help the disadvantaged and don't give Conservatives ammo.

One more thing (0.00 / 0)
Larry had a strong record of appointing female deans at Harvard, including the first ever woman to head Harvard Law School, Elena Kagan.
[ Parent ]
Again (0.00 / 0)
His writtings in The Financial Times:
http://www.ft.com/comment/colu...

and my favorite piece:
http://blogs.ft.com/wolfforum/...

[ Parent ]
Naomi Klein Joins Anti-Summers Campaign | 17 comments
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