Check this out! Larry Summers, the proposed director of Obama's National Economic Council?
David Corn really sounds a warning on Mother Jones blog.
"...on July 30, 1998, Summers testified in the Senate against the notion of the CFTC even pondering rules governing the trading of derivatives."
This creep, Summers, along with Gramm, Greenspan, and Rubin was in on the crucial moment that regulation was prevented. Right around the time of the LTCM hedge fund induced market crash.
Now we know where the blame really should be placed for "derivatives" and "credit default swaps", whatever they really are, these creeps obviously never understood them, and don't to this day.
Furthermore check this Gristmill article on Summers' offensive memo when he was VP at The World Bank in '91. Exceprt from Summers' filth in question:
'Dirty' Industries: Just between you and me, shouldn't the World Bank be encouraging MORE migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs [Less Developed Countries]? I can think of three reasons:
1) The measurements of the costs of health impairing pollution depends on the foregone earnings from increased morbidity and mortality. From this point of view a given amount of health impairing pollution should be done in the country with the lowest cost, which will be the country with the lowest wages. I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that.
2) The costs of pollution are likely to be non-linear as the initial increments of pollution probably have very low cost. I've always though that under-populated countries in Africa are vastly UNDER-polluted, their air quality is probably vastly inefficiently low compared to Los Angeles or Mexico City. Only the lamentable facts that so much pollution is generated by non-tradable industries (transport, electrical generation) and that the unit transport costs of solid waste are so high prevent world welfare enhancing trade in air pollution and waste.
3) The demand for a clean environment for aesthetic and health reasons is likely to have very high income elasticity. The concern over an agent that causes a one in a million change in the odds of prostrate cancer is obviously going to be much higher in a country where people survive to get prostrate cancer than in a country where under 5 mortality is is 200 per thousand. Also, much of the concern over industrial atmosphere discharge is about visibility impairing particulates. These discharges may have very little direct health impact. Clearly trade in goods that embody aesthetic pollution concerns could be welfare enhancing. While production is mobile the consumption of pretty air is a non-tradable.
The problem with the arguments against all of these proposals for more pollution in LDCs (intrinsic rights to certain goods, moral reasons, social concerns, lack of adequate markets, etc.) could be turned around and used more or less effectively against every Bank proposal for liberalization.
Why does The World Bank attract creeps? Wolfi, Summers. How many others have been creeps?
There's no excuse for putting creeps like this in jobs where they have responsibility over the lives of people. Plenty of sharp but compassionate people would like to have these positions.
How many creeps have we all seen in vital positions? Why do the Cheneys of this world rise to the top like scum on a cesspool? Because our government/corporate culture IS a cesspool?
It's the old chicken or the egg dilemna. Which causes which? The cesspool or the scum?
Obama is heading for trouble already, this is very disturbing indeed!
