My encounter with Larry Summers at JFK airport.

[CTyankee]

My travel buddy and I were waiting to board our flight on Iberia to Madrid on Thursday, Oct. 23rd when a schlumpy looking guy brushed past us to sit on a nearby bench, awaiting the same flight. He was talking loudly on his cell phone, obviously to an underling, and said "What do you hear from Treasury?" Buddy and I looked at each other and I said "Oh, brother, who's this character?" Then he barks "I'm advising Obama so I need to know this!" Buddy and I start to titter at this bigmouth. Then he tells the underling to email a document to him with an email address that included "summers" and "@harvard.edu." At that our ears perked up and I stole a glance at him and sure enough, it was him!

We got on economy class and he was still on his cell ("I've got another 5 minutes to talk" sez he, so we figured he was coming on in first or business class, since they get to board last and deplane first, which is why we didn't see him on the flight).

We laughed all the way to Madrid. I must say the guy was really full of himself and wanted the world to know it!

[TomClash]

1. . . . the guy was really full of himself and wanted the world to know it!

That fits Summers perfectly. Big mistake if Barack selects him for anything.

[gateley]

2. This from Wiki (I didn't know who he was - had to look him up)_:

New York Magazine reports that Summers will probably succeed Henry Paulson as Secretary of the Treasury in 2009 if Barack Obama is elected president.<1>

[lyonn]

6. We only know what the media and press tell us about a powerful

person such as Summers. We don't know that Obama will go that route. That kind of thinking is called "borrowing trouble". Of all the Dems to lead us at this point my money is on Obama! All indications are that he looks at issues from all angles, et. Being a former Biden backer, spent more $$ on him than any politician, this guy Obama has won me over big time. It is a matter of believing in a person's movtive and Obama convinced me his motives are sincere.

Hey, fun talking to ya gateley!! Have a good one....

[gateley]

9. ...

:hi:

[CTyankee]

8. The vibe I got from him was that he was desperate that people know he was "advising" Obama.

Otherwise, why walk through an airport blabbing it to the world? It would seem to me that if he really WERE a serious candidate for Sec Treasury he wouldn't need to advertise it. Seemed to me he was pushing himself...

[annabanana]

3. Beware this guy. .

In literally the dead of night, just before Congress's Christmas break in 2000, Chairman Gramm snuck a short provision into an 11,000-page appropriations bill. The item, which only a few lobbyists and lawmakers knew had been inserted, became law when the larger bill was signed by then-President Bill Clinton. Gramm's little legislative sticky note decreed that a relatively new, exotic, and inherently risky form of investments called "derivatives" were not to be regulated--or even monitored--by the government.

It should be noted here that Democrats were also butt-deep in the dereg orthodoxy. Such Wall Street sycophants as Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) had drunk deeply from the holy cup of derivatives deregulation, and Clinton's top economic advisors Robert Rubin (formerly with Goldman Sachs and now with Citigroup) and Lawrence Summers (also a veteran of Wall Street) were in harness with the Republicans on this effort.


from
http://www.alternet.org/workplace/105828/?page=2
The Five Most Wanted Rip-off Artists from Wall Street and Washington

[crazylikafox]

5. Yep. Larry Summers is scary & drank the koolaid years ago.

Now that that whole economic philosophy has been discredited, I hope Obama SERIOUSLY revisits his economic team choices. Trouble is, they're mostly from the Univ. of Chicago, which was the brain trust behind this whole mess.

[roamer65]

4. Robert Reich would make a better Treasury secretary.

Summers is a DLC piece of shit.

[lyonn]

7. Reich!! When that guy speaks, I listen. nt

[KoKo]

10. CNBC was reporting he's top of list for Obama's Sec of Treasury...

With former Fed Sec. Tim Geitner as 2, Paul Volker (Carter) as 3, Bob Rubin as possible down the list.