It's Election Season, Time To Talk About Nothing Important
Summers Packs His Bags As The Recession is Said To Be Over And Media Buries Reports on Financial Crime
by Danny Schechter
Septembeer 23, 2010
As the November election approaches, the White House seems to be ending its Rip Van Winkle-like slumber and has begun crawling out of the bubble of its own making. Many fear it’s a bit late.
The shakeup of President Obama’s economic team is long overdue. As Larry Summers slithers back to Harvard to save his tenure and write his book, he is likely to be replaced by exactly the wrong kind of person—a business executive, appointed to try to appease the Repugs and the Right. (Summers was paid $586,996-a-year at Harvard and picks up all kinds of consulting deals on the side from Wall Street.)
This maneuver won’t work of course because nothing Obama does will ever please them because they need him as their piñata, and a symbol of failure. He claims to see that but just can’t seem to get his appeasement gene in check. Notes the Naked Capitalism blog:
As much as some will be pleased to see Larry gone (he was a leading advocate of bank-friendly policies), his replacement is certain not to represent a change in philosophy…. he has made the cardinal mistake of trying to please everyone and has succeeded in having no one happy with his policies.
Financial journalist Michael M. Thomas believes that Summers like a gunslinger hired to clean up a town did what he was hired to do arguing, “Summers is leaving because he made sure real reform was discussed—but not accomplished.”
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/09/23-3