Larry Summers, Total Trekkie

So economic savant Larry Summers is a fan of Mr. Spock of the original Star Trek - who knew?

My utterly logical inference comes from this profile of Summers and the White House economic team by Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker:

[Summers] penchant for speaking in terms of probabilities is now so pronounced that Obama regularly teases him about it. “Larry will give precise quantitative estimates of things that are difficult to quantify,” one of his colleagues told me. “So the President will say, ‘I think there’s a seventy-two-point-seven-per-cent chance that I’m going to wear black shoes in the morning.’ ”

Summers was born in 1954 so the timing works perfectly - he would have been an impressionable 12 to 15 year old when the series aired from 1966 to 1969.

I have no doubt that this is deeply meaningful.  Now beam me up.

MULTITUDES, MULTITUDES:  The meeting to resolve the stimulus proposal takes the cake.

When the meeting broke up, after four hours of discussion, interrupted only briefly when the President brought out a cake and led the group in singing “Happy Birthday” to Orszag, there was still indecision about how big a stimulus Obama would recommend to Congress.  Summers, Romer, Geithner, Orszag, Emanuel, and Jason Furman huddled in the corner to lock down the number. Emanuel made the final call: six hundred and seventy-five to seven hundred and seventy-five billion dollars, with the understanding that, as the bill made its way through Congress, it was more likely to grow than to shrink. The final legislation was for seven hundred and eighty-seven billion dollars.

This must be even harder than getting the asbestos out of Altgeld Gardens.

 

Comments

[bgates]

“Larry will give precise quantitative estimates of things that are difficult to quantify,”

So this is his fault?

[clarice]

Rick was foolish to not have trademarked his phrase "credentialed morons".
Does this carp remind you of Robert McNamara?

[narciso]

He was the one who said he could tell the state of the economy, by the number of times
'depression' was googled. I sometimes feel like Taylor in the "Planet of the Apes" it's a madhouse.

[Neo]

From everything I've read about Larry Summers' place in the White House, he has the status of the 6th man on the "away team" (dead by the 1st commercial)

[Gabriel Sutherland]

Tom: Would you like an Altgeld Gardens story this evening?

Too bad. You're getting one.

Derrion Albert, the student beaten to death outside of Fenger High School in South Chicago was a "transplant". He was among a group of students bused to Fenger from Altgeld Gardens. The bus drops them off three blocks from Fenger.

Before Albert had reached high school age, his Altgeld Gardens peers attended Carver High School which was the closest high school to them. As part of the Renaissance 2010 plan started by Mayor Daley and led by Arne Duncan, Carver was converted into a military academy. The school became selective in its enrollment. Students that did not qualify for entry from Altgeld Gardens boarded buses to nearby Fenger instead.

On Tuesday, Arne Duncan and Eric Holder were in Chicago with Mayor Daley at the Four Seasons Hotel to talk about the Stimulus and Education. On the same day another fight broke out at Fenger.

The fights are almost daily. The fights are between local students close to Fenger who believe they must protect the territory against the invasion by the students from Altgeld Gardens.

The theme here is the same. Bill Ayers was right about local school councils. Where he was wrong was in placing the funds in the hands of the local school councils. The funds must follow the students. The students and their parents must be free to determine their capital flow.

[Gregory Koster]

TM, you might reconsider your "Multitudes, multitudes," line. The Bible gives the rest:

"Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision."

The Once's Koran changes this to:

"Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of INdecision"

Clarice, that is exactly what it reminds me of. Does this mean that after 2013, Larry Summers will write his memoir IN RETROSPECT IT WAS THE ONCE'S FAULT BUT DON'T ASK ME QUESTIONS ABOUT MY ROLE followed by endless TV harangues about the indiscipline and leaks and amateurism and generally low level of the dolts who surrounded him, but he won't getinto his own role. The Chinese will watch this fascination, but Americans won't save as part of their penance. Perhaps Larry is envious of John Kerry and want to be able to say, "I'm Larry Summers and I served in economic Vietnam. Reporting for duty," followed by a barrage of cream pies loaded with bricks.

[narciso]

That's a terrifying microcosm of what we face Gabriel, encapsulated in that one moment, which leaked out to the world. One question, why haven't they arrested the students who either killed or were accessories to that act, it's not like there
isn;t enough footage

[andycanuck]

Is there a "good" Obama somewhere who wears a goatee?

[Stephanie]

I, Mudd...

Obama is Mudd

Michelle is Stella.

Summers is Norman.

[mastour]

So, the One as a Nobel Peace Prize winner. When do the waters start to recede again?

[daddy]

Beat me to it---

Obama joins the podium with terrorist Yassar Arafat. He just can't seem to keep away from consorting with Terrorists can he, dead or alive.

[mastour]

When does he become elected President of the World? Seems like that's what he's pushing for after all. The US is just one body among many. With His vision of what the world shall be, how can we not push for his ascension. We are so beyond the tipping point at this point.

[daddy]

Very Interesting.

He must have won the Nobel Peace Prize because he decided to keep that horribly mean Saint, the Dalai Lama, at arms length, and decided instead to embrace Chavez, Castro, Quadaffi and Ahmadinijad.

I'm sure the Honduran's and Israeli's will applaud our planets greatest, new Peacemaker.

[daddy]

And the really nice thing is that he's so mature and all that this definitely won't go to his head and feed his ego.

[DGS]

I saw the headline about the Noble and thought it was a joke, probably something from Scott Ott's ScrappleFace.

The Noble committee should be embarrassed.

[daddy]

FOX news guys said that in order to be considered for the award he had to have been nominated by February of 2009. So he was nominated for the award after having been in office for about 2 weeks.

Sounds reasonable. I'm sure we all remember what he did up to those 2 weeks in office that qualified him to stand on a podium next to Jimmy Carter and the ghost of Yasser. Yas sir, O deserved it. No politics involved, simply accomplishment.

Today Ladies and Gentlemen, The Nobel Prize Committee "Jumped the Shark."

Keep laughing. Make them a laughing stock for this and the butt of jokes for generations. Please, let's use this to go on offense. Give them not a single smidgin of credibility from here on out.

This must have been their logic:

Obama is better than nothing...,
but Nothing is better than World Peace...
Therefore Obama is better than World Peace!

So lets give him that trophy and a million bucks so his wife can get some new clothes.

[Janet]

I thought it was a joke too! I can't even think of anything witty to say...just unbelievable!

[Captain Hate]

Obama is better than nothing...,

This was their first mistake

[Janet]

Too funny Captain Hate!

[Janet]

The UN, the Nobel committee, journalists, entertainers, the Democrat party,...clubs of losers that give themselves prizes.

[Cecil Turner]

Priceless:

Rather than recognizing concrete achievement, the 2009 prize appeared intended to support initiatives that have yet to bear fruit . . .

Hey, American voters did it, why can't the Prize Committee? What a great opportunity to roll out the second stimulus plan (and this time they can put lots of goodies in there for whatever ACORN changes its names to). Beam me up!

[Old Lurker]

Guy on the radio just predicted that next will be the Stanley Cup.

[daddy]

The Nobel committee who decide the Peace Prize according to FOX is 5 guys appointed to the committee by that nations politicians. Those 5 make the call.

They are unserious people playing political games. I dismiss them and the Peace Prize.

There are a hundred other candidates who actually have worked hard towards peace in this world, and 1 of them is that Dalai guy Obama dissed yesterday so as not to offend the "enlightened autocrats" running Friedman's China.

This disgrace, this sad joke, must be met with the honest scorn it deserves, while at the same time we should very publicly identify particular individuals that should have won it for their deeds, and contrast them with the winner of this inane popularity contest conducted by airheaded, sycophantic boobs, intent on pushing a worldwide agenda of staggering stupidity.

[peter]

Well, of course he deserves the Peace Prize, he got an A- rating from Time....
well, of course he deserves the A- rating from Time, he was awarded the Peace Prize,
repeat

[tea anyone]

Now we know where the TARP money went.

[daddy]

Sorry, 1 final comment and then I'm going to bed.

The fundamental question has to be "What did he deserve it for, especially when contrasted with all the others eligible for the award." That question answers itself: Nothing. And the role of the deserving others needs to be fleshed out thru-out the day by us, as the MSM will do it's best to bury other candidates and dishonestly support O's selection.

That leads to the logical 2nd question. "Then why the Heck did you board of moron's choose him, over so many other better and deserving candidates?"

And the sad honest answer has to be, "Because we are unserious people, taking our appointed position unseriously, and using it in a political fashion to push our agenda thru a guy, just like Gore, that we want to empower to push that agenda."

Nothing else passes the smell test. Just wish they'd come out and admit it.

[narciso]

That punchline from "AirPlane" seems apt,
'Looks like I picked a wrong time to quit, . . .

[megapotamus]

There was an interesting exchange between Christine Romer and "Scott" of "Chicago is out!?!??!!" fame on CNN. Romer was discussing a presentation by an Obama econ big, I think Summers on the stims etc. Scott asked something like "How does all this spending and borrowing reach down to the man on the street?" and Romer is looking pretty dubious and says, "As they explained we are now in the middle of the biggest financial experiment in history." Young Mr Scott had only the most muted reply. Progress.

[Mr Snarklolepsy]

"The needs of the many outweight the needs of the few". Spock, Marx, whatever.

[andycanuck]

Not Star Trek--Red Dwarf. The one where they land on the Earth-backwards planet (they're in Nodnol i.e. London) where you are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize before you actually bring about any peaceful resolutions to any world conflict.