Dean Baker | The Smart Boys: Larry Summers and Jeff Bezos

[n2doc]

The news in the last couple of weeks has had endless references to two people who we have been repeatedly told are brilliant: former Treasury Secretary and top Obama advisor Larry Summers and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The paeans to the genius of both men say a great deal about the quality of public debate in elite circles.

Larry Summers has been in the news because President Obama told a number of reporters of his desire to have Summers replace current Federal Reserve Board chair Ben Bernanke when his term ends in January. This caught many by surprise, since Janet Yellen seemed the obvious pick for this position.

In addition to having served the last two years as vice-chair at the Fed, Yellen had previously been president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, headed President Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisors, and been a member of the Board of Governors. Yellen also had an outstanding academic background, having been a professor at both Berkeley and Harvard. In addition, she would be the first woman to chair the Fed.

But Summers supporters countered that the country needed his brilliant mind. New York Times columnist David Brooks led the charge, telling the audience of an NPR show about Summers’ “meta-cognition skills,” which Brooks defined as his ability to know what he doesn't know.

While most of us really don’t have any idea of how smart Summers actually is, we do have some basis to assess his record. He was a big proponent of deregulation of the financial sector in 1990s and in the last decade, right up to when the collapse of the housing bubble led to the financial crisis. Apparently his meta-cognition skills didn’t help him much on that one.

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http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/18119-dean-baker-the-smart-boys-larry-summers-and-jeff-bezos

[broiles]

1. i have seen no evidence of Summers brilliance.

[abelenkpe]

2. K&R

[bullwinkle428]

3. Evidence of Bezos' brilliance: pets.com.

Because pets can't drive.