OBAMA....We Need REAL Change! Larry Summers promoted Deregulation of our Markets! (Petition)

[KoKo]

We Need Real Change: Ask Obama's Transition Team to Appoint a Treasury Secretary That Did Not Have a Hand in Deregulating Wall Street

When you sign this petition, your comments will go to John Podesta and Michael Strautmanis of the Obama transition team.

Right now, the rumors are that Larry Summers is one of the leading nominees to become the Treasury Secretary for the Obama administration. During normal times, the Treasury Secretary is an enormously important position, responsible for representing the position of an administration on both the global and domestic economy and making key policy decisions. At this particular moment, the Treasury Secretary is even more significant, responsible for a $700 billion bailout fund and for restoring balance to the American economy during turbulent times.

President-election Obama spoke eloquently and often about the perils of deregulation and trade agreements that do not include worker and environmental protection. These were in fact key distinguishing points between Senator Obama and Senator McCain, and with the financial crisis in mid-September, perhaps quite significant in the election as well. Obama has spoken clearly and effectively on these points, that it is critical that the next Treasury Secretary not continue the legacy of both the Clinton and Bush administration, a legacy of deregulation of financial markets and corporate trade agreements. The deregulation of our financial institutions has led to the current crisis, and threatens the stabiity of the global economy.

We are asking that Obama match his words with personnel decisions. In 1999, Summers was a proponent within the Clinton administration of the Gramm bill to deregulate the banking industry, and as such, bears responsibility for the current environment. It is not enough to fix the policy apparatus behind the crisis. President-elect Obama must not reward those who got the entire thesis about what makes the economy work wrong. There were advocates in 1999 who foresaw the crisis these policy choices would enable, both Senators like Byron Dorgan and advocacy groups.

Moreover, Larry Summers has a record of gaffes and insensitive remarks that will damage his ability to effective lead the Treasury Department A small selection of his statements are included below.

On His Work Moving NAFTA and Other Free Trade Agreements During the Clinton Era:

I think the decision to support NAFTA was a crucial one because it was really a watershed as to whether America was going to stand for larger markets, was going to stand for forward defense of our interests by trying to have a more integrated global economy which countries were growing.

I don't know that the Seattle protest against globalization, how linked are with some of the financial questions. I find them very sad because it seems to me that there's an enormous amount of very valuable moral energy that is being very, very badly misplaced.

There are children who are working in textile businesses in Asia who would be prostitutes on the streets if they did not have those jobs.

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Lawrence Summers Flashback: Africa Is 'Under-Polluted'

On December 12, 1991, while serving as chief economist for the World Bank, Summers authored a private memo arguing that the bank should actively encourage the dumping of toxic waste in developing countries, particularly "under populated countries in Africa," which Summers described as "UNDER-polluted."

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Summers' remarks on women draw fire

This was the point that most angered some of the listeners, several of whom said Summers said that women do not have the same ''innate ability" or ''natural ability" as men in some fields.

As President-elect Obama continues selecting his team to run the country, we are hopeful that he will bring the change that millions of Americans are seeking. Selecting a Treasury Secretary who did not help bring about the financial crisis, but who could start with a clean sweep and the moral authority to fix our problems, would be a wonderful start.

If you care about Summers Appointment, (and don't think he's the best for the job of Treasury Secretary),then sign this petition to John Podesta who is head of Obama's "Transition Team." Voice Your Opinion!

http://action.openleft.com/page/petition/treasury

[KoKo]

1. I know how tired we "activists" are of signing petitions...but this one

does seem to be important. Obama said he would listen to us...and it's up to us to move him forward.

So..maybe some are tired and others don't want to bother figuring Obama's gonna do the correct thing, anyway. BUT...can we really be sure this election makes a difference if we don't keep working for Reforms?

:shrug: I hope folks will at least read this and do what you think is best after reading it. We have to keep on top of what is going on...Obama asked us to.

[slipslidingaway]

2. Done..."The Woman Greenspan, Rubin & Summers Silenced"

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut/370925/the_woman_greenspan_rubin_summers_silenced

"...What these "three marketeers" --as they were called in a 1999 Time magazine cover story--were adept at was peddling the timebombs at the heart of this complex crisis: exotic and opaque financial instruments known as derivatives--contracts intended to hedge against risk and whose values are derived from underlying assets. To cut to the quick, Greenspan, Rubin and Summers opposed regulating them. "Proposals to bring even minimalist regulation were basically rebuffed by Greenspan and various people in the Treasury," recalls Alan Blinder, a former Federal Reserve board member and economist at Princeton University, in the Times article.

In 1997, Brooksley Born warned in congressional testimony that unregulated trading in derivatives could "threaten our regulated markets or, indeed, our economy without any federal agency knowing about it." Born called for greater transparency--disclosure of trades and reserves as a buffer against losses.

Instead of heeding this oracle's warnings, Greenspan, Rubin & Summers rushed to silence her. As the Times story reveals, Born's wise warnings "incited fierce opposition" from Greenspan and Rubin who "concluded that merely discussing new rules threatened the derivatives market." Greenspan deployed condescension and told Born she didn't know what she doing and she'd cause a financial crisis. (A senior Commission director who worked with Born suggests that Greenspan and the guys didn't like her independence. " Brooksley was this woman who was not playing tennis with these guys and not having lunch with these guys. There was a little bit of the feeling that this woman was not of Wall Street.")

In early 1998, according to the Times story, one of the guys, Larry Summers, called Born to "chastise her for taking steps he said would lead to a financial crisis..."

[KoKo]

3. Thanks for that article. No wonder Summers made his sexist comments

at Harvard considering how that cabal treated Brooksley Born, the whistle blower who was raining on their parade.

[slipslidingaway]

11. YW and a kick n/t

[bvar22]

4. K&R

Retreads from the era of Free Trade and Deregulation are TOXIC.
"Too BIG to Fail" should be a clue.


The Democratic Party is a BIG TENT, but there is NO ROOM for those
who advance the agenda of THE RICH (Corporate Owners) at the EXPENSE of LABOR and the POOR.

[KoKo]

5. ...

[Romulox]

6. Rightwing economics will invalidate the rest of the "Change" message

When all our taxpayer monies are funneled into the "dividend" funds of wealthy investors, there will be no money for infrastructure, no money for education, no money for UHC.

[KharmaTrain]

7. Catch 22 Time...

First off...I do not support Summers going back to Treasury for a vast majority of the reasons posted above. Too many people have their hands dirty in this mess, but here's the catch...

To fix the system, you have to know it and know it well. Be assured that any loophole will be found and exploited...any attempts to be punative rather than corrective will prolong the current mess. The time to settle scores come after the this mess is put under control...where the huge debt is addressed, credit begins to flow and the markets stabilize. To do this effectively you need people who know the street and how both to fix the current depression while not making things worse.

Bringing in an outsider is asking for trouble as they may know the mechanics and the fundamentals, but they don't know the people and buttons to push both on in Washington and on Wall Street that could stall a solution or end up in a messy process. Personally, I'd like to see Jon Corzine appointed to Treasury. Yes, he's former Goldman-Sachs, but he is removed from a lot of the current mess and had both the smarts and the contacts to first get this economy under control and then to push for re-regulation and rebuilding a rejuvenated SEC.

Cheers...

[madfloridian]

8. Thanks for the link to this.

Recommended.

[antigop]

9. Even Josh Marshall at TPM has expressed concerns

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/243197.php

Am I missing something or are there like four or five completely independent reasons not to appoint Larry Summers Treasury Secretary? I'm really having a hard time understanding this one.

Just at the level of optics, since the economy is issue number one right now (and not just the real economy of jobs and living standards but the financial architecture itself) and you're trying to look forward not back, why would you pick someone for Treasury who was not only in the Clinton administration but was actually Treasury Secretary in the Clinton administration. Not understanding that.

Next, management shortcomings and controversial statements about women's brains that got him canned as President of Harvard.

And on top of that, the new Treasury Secretary will be charged with instituting a beefed up framework of financial sector regulation. But Summers was a key player in the 1990s deregulatory consensus that laid the groundwork for a lot of these problems. Not that that makes him verboten -- a lot of other people did too. But it does create an element of of cognitive dissonance going into the job.

I'm not sure any of these strikes against would be determinative in themselves. Perhaps each taken together would not be if the crisis of the moment demanded Summers. But is he really the only one available?

[truedelphi]

10. This appointment slipped under my radar. Glad

You caught it and are disseminating the info we need to focus on.

[Augdog20]

12. More centrists besides Summers -see Times and my blog post

Check out NY Times article posted to my blog; cites centrist trend:

Schwarzenegger, Gates etc.

http://bluesunited.blogspot.com/

(foreign press links cited on my post.)