Why Isn't This Getting More Attention? (Larry Summers Destroying Harvard's Endowment)

[MannyGoldstein]

Larry Summers is the top economic power in the Obama administration. As President of Harvard, he forced the destruction of Harvard's endowment:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=433&topic_id=24737&mesg_id=24737">Advisers told Summers, others not to put so much cash in market; losses hit $1.8b

The incompetence is staggering.

I'm surprised that this isn't of interest to more netizens of DU.

[depakid]

1. Oh, it's of interest- it's just old news to a lot of us.

I find the fact that he got run from the job for the same sort of arrogant misogyny that he and others displayed with Brooksley Born to be even more telling.

[MannyGoldstein]

2. Did You Realize That He Was So Actively Involved In This Debacle?

Previously I knew he failed to heed warnings... but not that he told his chief advisor to go screw.

[depakid]

3. Yep- and it was all too typical of his behavior over the years.

He may have dazzled Obama and Clinton- but more than a few of us out there knew what he was all about long ago.

[elleng]

6. I agree, and there was more of the same in his Harvard job,

but as to Brooksley Born, there were more than just summers involved, AND she just wasn't a player. Same would probably have happened to a man with similar pov, imo.

[gateley]

4. You know something? Sometimes I almost can't breathe when I actually give

thought to ALL this type of stuff that's going on, and being allowed to continue. It's overwhelming and mind boggling. I think it's truly impossible to give energy to all the things that need it. When I hear about stuff like this, I feel like I've been kicked down again and sometimes think I. Can't. Take. Any. More.

[grasswire]

5. I know that feeling.

It's the same feeling I get when screwed over by an entity of the financial industry.

Some might advocate dropping out of the system. Finding property, becoming self-sustaining, limiting their hold on us. But some of us have no resources to do that, and so we are locked into this grisly dance.

[Enthusiast]

15. Also know the feeling.

It's not like we can pretend this stuff did not happen.

[AllentownJake]

7. What do we know about Larry

1) Advocated exporting toxic waste producing industries to the third world because their life expectancies and health care was lower and they'd be less likely to notice the ill effects of dumping said Toxic waste in 1991


2) Was involved in the effort to silence Brooksly Born over the derivative trading holes in regulation and potential dangers even after the near collapse of the financial system during Bill Clinton's Presidency due to a derivative firm blowing up.


3) While President of Harvard in a speech dismissed the idea that it was possible that sexism existed in Academia because it made no economic sense and than floated the idea that women at the high ed of aptitude were just nut able to cut it with their male colleagues.


(Marie Curie if anyone needs to know the picture)

4) While at Harvard, the one area you would think a world renowned economist might be successful, investing took on too much risk and cost Harvard 1.8 billion dollars.




Why isn't there more interest on DU?

1) People don't want to believe that such an individual has been put in charge of anything important.

2) It does not reflect positively on a man we respect and worked hard to elect that he values this man's opinion.

3) It forces us to reflect on the legacy of another Democratic President economically and question whether actual progress was made during his term considering many policies during his term, now appear to be biting us in the ass and we can't just blame George W. Bush (who was an economic weapon of mass destruction himself). Looking backwards at our own mistakes as a party for supporting such nonsense and not pointing fingers is considered a sign of weakness.

[bbgrunt]

8. great post. k k k and r r r r r

[avaistheone1]

9. How does an incompetent sociopath like Summers rise to run the top institutions in

our country? That is what I want to know.

[AllentownJake]

14. Because the nature of the business is sociopathic to begin with?

and Larry has an amazing ability to not be there when his schemes blow-up.

[boppers]

10. Perhaps because protecting the ultra-rich isn't a high priority?

A bunch of wealthy snobs losing money to others isn't exactly something to rile the masses.

Heck, it's practically a *positive* job qualification.

[AllentownJake]

11. Actually the opposite is true

When a big university loses money it is less likely to offer scholarships and that will reduce the number of, poor, lower middle class, and middle class people from going to that institution who have the intellectual prowess to enter a university of that caliber.

In fact, Harvard losing 1.8 billion dollars has the opposite effect of what you just posted. It guarantees that there will be more positions for the wealthy class to make up for that money because at the end of the day, they can't print their own money, they have to balance their budget like every other institution in the country that doesn't have TARP fund access or Tim Geithner's blessing to pay them 100% on the dollar on their bad bets with a bankrupt financial institution.

I know people who went to Harvard that weren't rich, they were just a hell of a lot smarter than I am. I guess I can shake my fist at God that he didn't grant me a few more IQ points. Seeing that I have an autistic brother, I don't do that, that often.

[boppers]

12. If Harvard shut down, the world would not be less intelligent.

An institution that enshrines class, however, would be eliminated.

As somebody who got a lot of IQ points, BTW, and has watched a lot of 140+ friends over the years, well, the whole "class thing" isn't where it's at. Only the marginally smart seem to buy into it.

Which happens to be the majority.

[AllentownJake]

13. Well I guess you must think they do a poor job educating people

I think the guy saying chill the fuck out in your signature, might disagree with you on the quality of the education offered there.

There are always going to be elites in society. The question on elites is not the fact we have them, it is the question on how they become elites and how they treat those in our society that were not blessed by God or nature with the skills and resources they were given.

[boppers]

22. Do we worship them or not?

O's history might as well be community college to me.

Does his education make him "higher" to you?

[MannyGoldstein]

16. Harvard Has A Fantastic Tuition Policy

Parents pay no more than 10% of their income for tuition. This makes it very affordable for the non-wealthy.

[HamdenRice]

17. Your numbers are way off

Harvard's endowment losses are closer to around $12 billion, and if you factor in investments that haven't been written off, but that are now "illiquid", they may be much more.

The Summers approach may have lost 1/3 to 1/4 of the $40 billion endowment.

The joke going around the academic world before the crash was that Harvard was a hedge fund that happened to also teach classes. Despite being the richest endowment in the university world, they even borrowed heavily to "leverage" their hedge fund returns.

All the universities that took the hedge fund approach to endowment management got clobbered, but perhaps none as badly as Harvard.

On the bright side, that $40 billion was probably never there in the first place and was in part a paper endowment based on double digit returns on hedge fund investments before the crash.

[CTyankee]

18. I was on a flight to Madrid in Oct. 08 that he was on and judging by his behavior

while we were waiting to board (he was in 1st class, naturally), he struck me as a loudmouthed, boorish guy. He was talking loudly into his cell phone saying stuff like "I'm advising Obama on this so I need to see the report" (don't know what it was that he had to "see") and "What does Treasury say?"

What a blowhard...I don't know why he was trying to impress the other passengers...or maybe he just isn't aware of being an idiot.

I was curious why a major advisor to Obama was going to Spain in mid October of the election year, but I googled it when I got back. He was speaking at some corporate conference. Iberia Airlines was a major sponsor of the event so I'm guessing that's how he got his first class ticket...

[HamdenRice]

19. To be fair to Summers, there is a LOT of speculation that he has Asberger's Syndrome

or maybe even mild autism. Of course, that doesn't excuse him from being an idiot and there are lots of nice Asberger's people. But the speculation from people who have been close to him is that he has some lack of capacity to understand other people's emotional reactions to him.

[CTyankee]

20. Well, that would make sense. It would also explain his odd behavior with Harvard's

endowment investments. I'm amazed that Harvard would get him as its president in the first place. Being president of any university has to be PR/fundraising as job One.

But my brief encounter with him showed him to be oblivious to everyone around him. Before I actually looked at him, I was exchanging eyerolls with my travel buddy. Then he said something like "Send it to my email"...and it was a harvard.edu address). another oddball thing was he was wearing loafers that he had slipped on with the back of the heels down. Slob.

[uponit7771]

21. Summers et al is Obama's achilies heal, they don't know what they're doing & if the economy can't be

...propped up for long under Obama then who in their right mind can't blame him for choosing some of the same mentality and policies that the Bush admin choose?

Summers et al are supply siders, their stripes aren't going to change