Free Republic

President Barack Obama's top economic adviser on Friday challenged financial institutions to "think about what they can do for their country" by accepting fundamental regulatory changes this year. Summers said the entire financial industry continues to benefit from trillions of dollars in bailout money, even as some of the biggest Wall Street firms report billion-dollar profits and continue to pay major bonus packages. There is no financial institution that exists today that is not the direct or indirect beneficiary of trillions of dollars of taxpayer support for the financial system," Lawrence Summers, director of the National Economic Council, said Friday....

Many who backed Obama at the time of the financial crisis last Fall, are now, in private, expressing grave misgivings. (snip) I'm told that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and chief economic adviser Lawrence Summers have both complained to senior Wall Street execs that they have almost no say in major policy decisions. Obama economic counselor Paul Volcker, the former Fed chairman, is barely consulted at all on just about anything -- not even issues involving the banking system, of which he is among the world's leading authorities.(snip)(obama)is acting as if he has a blank check to do what he wants,...

Hathaway’s abrupt resignation probably signals her recognition that the whole concept of a cybersecurity czar was misguided. “The status quo is no longer acceptable,” said the executive summary of her report. “Leadership should be elevated and strongly anchored within the White House to provide direction, coordinate action, and achieve results.” Having the old “Czar” report to both the national security and economic advisers shows that the White House is looking to insure “a balance between homeland security and economic concerns,” anonymous sources said. It also points out they’re trying to put out a fire [internal battle] in which Larry Summers,...

I suspect that Republican strategists all over the country are salivating right now. That's because White House advisor, Larry Summers, just handed them a political gift. In responding to a question about whether the president would raise taxes on the middle class he answered like this. of this economy. There is a lot, though, there is a lot that can happen overtime. But the priority right now, so it is never a good idea to absolutely rule things -- rule things out no matter what.

WASHINGTON (AP) - 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."

Here is video from the House floor today where GOP Rep. Mike McCaul of Texas showed an enlarged picture of Obama top economic adviser Larry Summers sleeping, and then used it to say that it perfectly illustrates the fact the Obama Administration is "asleep at the wheel" when it comes to creating jobs. He then cited the higher unemployment rates under Obama, and the Cap and Trade bill that would put many more Americans out of work. McCaul was met with shouts on the House floor when he produced the picture. . . . . (Watch Video)

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."

Type "rubbish economist" into Google. Then hit "I'm Feeling Lucky"... The INCOVENIENT TRUTH about statistics, as Al Gore would no doubt confess if you threatened to stop him flying, is they look backwards, not forwards - and not even quite to the present.

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. Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25083.html#ixzz0LdMgsqTz

The best evidence that Larry Summers is headed to the Federal Reserve is the enormous amount of new power the Obama Administration wants to hand over to the Fed. Are they really doing this so that it can be handed over to the relative outsider, Ben Bernanke? Not likely. This is a power play by the ultimate troika, President Obama, Rham Emanuel and Summers. Of course, there is a reaction to this power play from the corners of Wall Street and beyond that don't have significant influence at the table of the troika. A report, by an alliance including two...

Democrats in Congress and the Obama White House are plotting to remove Federal Reserve Chairman Benjamin Bernanke and replace him with Obama's chief economic adviser, Larry Summers, at the end of his term next year, writes veteran bank analyst Richard X. Bove of Connecticut-based Rochdale Securities in a report to clients. Summers is the brainy Main Line native, ex-Harvard president, and ex-Treasury Secretary who's trying to re-regulate the financial institutions he helped deregulate under President Clinton, causing the current mess. A shift to Summers "is likely to be bad for the American economy, its financial system, and the banks. A...

National Economic Council Director Lawrence H. Summers said yesterday that the government's emergency involvement in the financial system would be temporary and that the Obama administration is committed to free-market principles. The administration has been criticized by some lawmakers and bankers for all but nationalizing major corporations such as Chrysler and Citigroup. Some have gone as far as to accuse the White House of promoting a "socialist" approach. Summers, one of the most influential voices on economic matters within the White House, responded to critics by saying the initiatives to rescue the financial system were out of "necessity not choice."...

President Obama's chief economic adviser said Friday that the president has only intervened in the financial marketplace out of necessity. Lawrence Summers defended Obama's economic actions, saying they have been "particularly consistent and firm since the crisis began while he was campaigning for president." Even as Capitol Hill Republicans are railing against the administration's interventions into the auto industry, Wall Street and healthcare, Summers said "the actions we take are those of necessity, not choice." Summers, talking in New York City to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), said the president has demonstrated "an unequivocal recognition that we only act...

Ninety years ago the Chicago White Sox intentionally lost--dumped, to you sports fans--the World Series. Legend has it that a young fan implored the team's star, "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, as he emerged from the court house, "Say it ain't so, Joe." The Shoeless one allegedly responded, "Yes, I'm afraid it is, kid." Let's hope that chief White House economic adviser Larry Summers wouldn't respond similarly if someone were to charge that he sat silently when the administration's political types decided it would be just fine to submit a budget that will take the ratio of debt-to-GDP from around 40 percent...

Obama Should Reappoint Bernanke Brian S. Wesbury and Robert Stein, 05.19.09, 12:00 AM EDT The present Fed chairman is a much better choice than Larry Summers. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner recently said in an interview that the No. 1 policy mistake that helped cause our economic and financial turmoil was that "monetary policy around the world was too loose, too long." Some people may think this was Geithner's way of throwing Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke under the bus. After all, although former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan has been getting the lion's share of the blame for overly loose money...

Wow, that has to be a record for shortest tenure ever at the NY Fed. His resignation letter (below), is as Dealbook notes, rather disingenuous: Mr. Friedman was chairman of the New York Fed at the same time he was a member of Goldman’s board. He also had a substantial stake in the firm as the Fed was crafting a solution to keep Wall Street banks afloat. Denis M. Hughes, deputy chair of the board, will take over as the interim chairman, the New York Fed said in a statement. (Read Mr. Friedman’s letter after the jump.) Because the New...

...HMC frequently under-reported its income from outside money management firms by “netting” it, or cancelling it out, with management fees paid out by the University. This practice, which reduces HMC tax obligations, is questionable because much of the income that Harvard receives from the firms actually derives from management fees that the firms collect from other investors—activities unrelated to the University’s tax-exempt purpose...In one particularly infuriating incident, Rose said that after he repeatedly inquired about a seemingly purposeless investment vehicle, a lawyer informed him that the company was actually set up to help a former employee defer his income to...

Larry Summers, the president's top financial adviser, apparently isn't getting a lot of sleep. For that or some other reason, as President Obama spoke to reporters inside the White House Thursday following a meeting with credit card company executives, Summers was photographed clearly asleep at the end of a table in the Roosevelt Room

For that or some other reason, as President Obama spoke to reporters inside the White House Thursday following a meeting with credit card company executives, Summers was photographed clearly asleep at the end of a table in the Roosevelt Room. Here's a link to a gallery that has some of these images. This isn't the first time this has happened. Summers reportedly fell asleep during an economic summit at the White House in February, but there were no cameras at that event.

It doesn't matter what your doctor says; the Obama administration plans to decide if you will have cancer treatment or heart surgery. Appearing on "Meet the Press" on Sunday, Lawrence H. Summers, President Obama's chief economic adviser, stated, "Whether it's tonsillectomies or hysterectomies ... procedures are done three times as frequently [in some parts of the country than others] and there's no benefit in terms of the health of the population. And by doing the right kind of cost-effectiveness, by making the right kinds of investments and protection, some experts ... estimate that we could take as much as $700...