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The danger of Larry Summers - even when he's right, he's wrong [1]
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Date: 2023-06-18
Jeet Heer at the Nation has a striking article up about the recent mini-resurgence of Larry Summers’ profile and how even when he’s right, he’s wrong.
Its a little alarming to see how he still has cache in Democratic politics and with Democratic leaders given how his stewardship of the Obama recovery left it too little/too slow for years and nearly cost Obama a second term (widely documented but good summary about halfway down here. Heer also mentions how these failures led to Trump’s rise). This on top of his failures in prescribing deregulation in the 90’s that led to later financial crises.
His image gained a bit of a resurgence after Biden’s election and Summers made the rounds to sound the alarms about inflation… which did indeed prove prescient. He gained various accolades in the political press.
What I am guessing our Democratic elected officials didn’t know is that Summers has been advocating for extreme austerity measures — rooted in the belief that there was too much money available to consumers in today’s economy(!?!?), Summers made the outrageous claim that a period of prolonged, elevated unemployment was ‘necessary’ for the economy — including a year of unemployment above 10%!
While stimulus money combined with COVID driven supply chain issues may have been a factor in the inflation of the last ~18 months, its just a part of the story. And you’ve probably seen, even the corporate friendly financial press is picking up on the reality that price gouging, profiteering, and “greedflation” have been driving inflation, not an abundance of consumer demand — academic research is starting to back this up.
Let’s hope that leaders in the party are wise to Summers’ nonsense and paying attention to his radical prescriptions… and if we see them spouting his nonsense, call out how incorrect and damaging it can be.
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/6/18/2176142/-The-danger-of-Larry-Summers-even-when-he-s-right-he-s-wrong
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