4 ms·
This was a political decision. Larry Summers is one of the sharpest and most productive economists around and would have been as qualified as any Fed Chairmen i
by spikels 13y ago
This was a political decision. Larry Summers is one of the sharpest and most productive economists around and would have been as qualified as any Fed Chairmen in history. However he has tended to speak his mind too freely for a job requiring the approval of our timid politicians. I'm sure they will find someone almost as good to fill the spot and he will be fine making millions on Wall St rather than helping formulate our monetary policy.
- zurn 13y ago> However he has tended to speak his mind too freely for a job requiring the approval of our timid politicians. Krugman thinks the problem with Summers would have been too much timidity: "Summers, on the other hand, while he often expresses unconventional views when not in office, has a strong tendency to revert to conventionality when in office." ... "So the apparent decision to appoint Summers is a strong anti-regime-shift signal on Obama’s part." (http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/03/summers-the-shiftless/?_r=0 http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/03/summers-the-shif...)
- mathattack 13y agoIt's a political decision, but sometimes this is how the political process works best. For better or worse our political process pushes towards extreme edges during the primaries as candidates have to play to the base. Getting appointed officials through congressional approval forces the people actually doing the work to be closer to the center of the country's political thought.