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The House of Representatives has passed what I like to think of as Larry’s Law. The official title of this legislation is “Fulfilling the potential of women in academic science and engineering,” but nothing did more to empower its advocates than the controversy over a speech by Lawrence H. Summers when he was president of Harvard. This proposed law, if passed by the Senate, would require the White House science adviser to oversee regular “workshops to enhance gender equity.” At the workshops, to be attended by researchers who receive federal money and by the heads of science and engineering departments...

The M3 money supply in the United States is contracting at an accelerating rate that now matches the average decline seen from 1929 to 1933, despite near zero interest rates and the biggest fiscal blitz in history The M3 figures - which include broad range of bank accounts and are tracked by British and European monetarists for warning signals about the direction of the US economy a year or so in advance - began shrinking last summer. The pace has since quickened. The stock of money fell from $14.2 trillion to $13.9 trillion in the three months to April, amounting...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/statement-press-secretary-a-new-beginning-presidential-summit-entrepreneurship Home • Briefing Room • Statements & Releases The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release March 05, 2010 Statement by the Press Secretary on A New Beginning: Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship President Obama, together with the Department of State and the Department of Commerce, will host the Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C., on April 26 and 27. Participants from over 40 countries on 5 continents have been invited to participate. The Summit will highlight the role entrepreneurship can play in addressing...

One angle in my recent profile of Tim Geithner concerned his relationship with Larry Summers, his former mentor and the director of the National Economic Council. I contend that Geithner, not Summers, has emerged as Obama's key adviser on financial matters, and that Summers isn't happy about it. (Not everybody was convinced.) Since my piece appeared, the buzz that Summers is looking to leave--or is being pushed out--has picked up. Earlier today, my colleague Marc Ambinder wrote about this, defending Summers against his critics while leaving open the possibility that he may, indeed, leave. My own view is a bit...

The conventional wisdom in Washington and on Wall Street has been that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner -- the target of populist outrage over Wall Street bailouts and high unemployment -- would be the first to leave the Obama administration’s economic team after the mid-term elections. But the FOX Business Network has learned that another high-ranking economic adviser may be first. Larry Summers, who heads the White House’s National Economic Council, has been described as unhappy in his job, and is suggesting in conversations that he may leave the administration by the end of the year, according to Wall Street executives...

President Obama continuously tries to portray himself as a friend to the little-man, middle class and small business. Hence his attacks on "fat cats" who "just don't get it," while labeling the extravagant bonuses as "obscene," and "the height of irresponsibility." Meanwhile, members of his administration, in defending a sweeping small-business aid program Obama announced in his State of the Union, give reason to wonder if they really understand how to help small business. Among the administration's proposals for small businesses are a $5,000 tax credit to hire new workers, elimination of capital gains taxes, and new incentives to invest...

"The blizzards that affected much of the country during the last month are likely to distort the statistics. So it's going to be very important ... to look past whatever the next figures are to gauge the underlying trends," Summers said in an interview with CNBC.

On February 9th, Obama's senior economics adviser, Larry Summers, appeared on FOX Business to discuss the President Obama’s economic plan, which includes future tax increases, record spending, and record deficits (even after accounting for the tax increase which is very disturbing in itself). Summers, contending that increased taxes reduces unemployment said, “Almost all economists who studied these things have that kind of view.” He can't be serious, can he?

There's little doubt that the Obama administration will continue its relatively accomodative, Wall Street-friendly policies for some time to come, as the still-weak banking system gets coddled back to health. But it's also true that the administration still has to do more to shed its pro-Wall Street image -- established fairly or unfairly by the likes of Matt Taibbi. One way to do that would be to start severing official ties with the various Clintonistas that inhabit The White House, most notably economic advisor Larry Summers, one of the most charged figures there is. Summers is known for being "brilliant,"...

When Larry Summers was president of Harvard, a woman by the name of Iris Mack was fired from Harvard Capital Management. The problem with this? A month before she was fired she sent Summers an email warning him about the quality of the portfolio managers at HMC and also about the dangerous derivatives positions that HMC was taking on that ultimately resulted in huge losses for Harvard. {snip] The story of Summers' mismanagement of Harvard's finances appears to be a story that won't seem to die. Most recently showcased by Bloomberg. Now focus appears to be picking up on Mack,...

President Obama's top economic adviser Lawrence Summers today for the first time predicted that job growth would begin as early as this spring. "I believe that, as do most professional forecasters, that by spring, employment growth will start to be turning positive," Summers told ABC's "This Week." It's the first time the White House has predicted job growth on such a short timetable. Summers would not commit to a timeline during an earlier ABC News interview on Dec. 4, the day the last jobs report was released. That jobs report showed the national unemployment had dropped in November, from 10.2...

President Barack Obama's economic advisers are talking tough about the banks ahead of his meeting with heads of financial institutions. Larry Summers and Christina Romer say Obama will press bankers Monday to ease lending to help Americans get back to work. As Summers put it, bankers need to recognize that "they've got obligations to the country after all that's been done for them." He says no major bank would be intact without the government's bailout of the financial sector, and now they need to do all they can to get credit flowing again.

According to a university colleague, former president of Harvard and current White House economist Larry Summers once asked for help to "f--- up" one of the school's conservative professors.

The Obama administration claims that it was their passage of massive government spending that saved the United States from another Great Depression. Last week, Larry Summers, Obama's top economic adviser, claimed that because of the stimulus: "We have walked a substantial distance back from the economic abyss and are on the path toward economic recovery. Most importantly, we have seen a substantial change in the trend of job loss." And Vice President Biden declared at the end of September: "In my wildest dreams, I never thought it [the stimulus] would work this well." As President Obama and other Democrats have...

Harvard University’s failed bet that interest rates would rise cost the school at least $500 million in payments to escape derivatives that backfired, reports Bloomberg. Harvard paid $497.6 million to investment banks during the fiscal year ended June 30 to get out of $1.1 billion of interest-rate swaps intended to hedge variable-rate debt for capital projects, the school’s annual report said. Harvard said it also agreed to pay $425 million over 30 to 40 years to offset an additional $764 million in swaps. The transactions began losing value last year as central banks slashed benchmark lending rates, forcing the university...

President Barack Obama's top economic adviser said on Monday the United States is on the path toward economic recovery, conditions in financial markets are steadier and there have been initial signs of stabilization in the housing market. "Thanks largely to the Recovery Act, alongside an aggressive financial stabilization plan and a program to keep responsible homeowners in their homes, we have walked a substantial distance back from the economic abyss and are on the path toward economic recovery," Larry Summers said in a letter to be sent to Republican House Leader John Boehner that amounted to a defense of the...

Summers defends Obama economic record WASHINGTON — A top White House adviser is defending President Barack Obama’s approach to reviving the economy and says the new administration inherited a situation far worse than anyone understood. Economic adviser Larry Summers said Sunday that “we didn’t know how bad it was last winter” when the new administration took over. Despite that, he said the administration’s stimulus spending is the right framework to stop an economic free fall. He also said an overhaul of the health care system is key to helping reduce the deficit. Summers appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

New taxes to help address the long-term budget deficit cannot be ruled out, National Economic Council Director Larry Summers admitted Sunday. Summers said during an appearance on CBS that "it's never a good idea to absolutely rule things out no matter what" when it comes to the prospect of new taxes. [snip] President Obama's top economic adviser said that the efforts to restructure healthcare in the U.S. would be chief among its efforts to reduce the deficit over time, characterizing the administration's attempt for a deficit-neutral reform bill as historically responsible. "This is the most fiscally responsible approach to introducing...

The White House has just released excerpts of chief economic adviser Larry Summers' speech on the economy today. Summers, per the excerpts, will also discuss what the administration hopes the economy will look like once it recovers. "The rebuilt American economy must be more export-oriented and less consumption-oriented, more environmentally oriented and less fossil-energy-oriented, more bio- and software-engineering-oriented and less financial-engineering-oriented, more middle-class-oriented and less oriented to income growth that disproportionately favors a very small share of the population."

Of all the statistics pouring into the White House every day, top economic adviser Larry Summers highlighted one Friday to make his case that the economic free-fall has ended. The number of people searching for the term “economic depression” on Google is down to normal levels, Summers said. Searches for the term were up four-fold when the recession deepened in the earlier part of the year, and the recent shift goes to show consumer confidence is higher, Summers told the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Summers continued the administration’s push-back against critics of President Barack Obama’s handling of the recession,...