Peter Orszag, Christina Romer, Larry Summers, Timothy Geithner, Jared BernsteinAn inside look at Obama's economic team and a close-up on Larry Summers (loathed by the left) in the New Yorker's money issue:
In early August, Lawrence H. Summers, President Barack Obama’s top economic adviser, accompanied Vice-President Joseph Biden aboard Air Force Two on a trip to Detroit. Michigan has a fifteen-per-cent unemployment rate, the highest in America, and Detroit has become virtually a ward of the federal government: the United States now owns ten per cent of Chrysler and sixty-one per cent of General Motors. The purpose of Biden’s trip was to announce an additional $2.4 billion in federal grants, to help jump-start the electric-car industry; more than a billion will go to battery and auto manufacturers in Michigan.Summers reminds me of record producer Rick Rubin, who often sleeps to produce. Summers catching a few winks:
Summers, who is the director of the National Economic Council, the White House office that coördinates all economic policy in the Obama Administration, has rarely travelled outside Washington this year, and was in Detroit on a fact-finding mission. After nearly a year of debate about how much federal intervention was needed to beat back the recession—a debate that started during the end of the Presidential campaign—he was somewhat optimistic. The principal measures that Obama had taken—implementing the stimulus package, rescuing the banks, restructuring the automakers—had begun to stabilize the economy. In a speech three weeks earlier, Summers had put it this way: “We were at the brink of catastrophe at the beginning of the year, but we have walked some substantial distance back from the abyss.” It seemed like a good moment to check in on the government’s investments in Michigan.
Summers looked exhausted. The previous day, he hadn’t left the White House until after midnight, and he was up at dawn to make the flight to Detroit. As Granholm talked about layoffs, he eyed a bottle of soda on the table in front of her. Summers drinks many Diet Cokes a day, and he was badly in need of one. He got up, his shirttails peeking out from underneath his jacket, and shuffled over to a counter at the side of the room in search of a caffeinated beverage. All he found was an empty glass, which he carried back to his seat. The manufacturers took turns explaining their plight. Wes Smith, of E. & E. Manufacturing, argued that although the public hates bailouts, “helping manufacturing is popular.” An executive from Atlas Technologies quoted Jeffrey Immelt, the head of G.E., who had recently said that manufacturing jobs should make up twenty per cent of total employment in the United States—twice what it is now. Several of the participants argued that the bank bailouts hadn’t revived lending in their industry, so the government needed to intervene. Ned Staebler, one of Granholm’s top economic advisers, explained excitedly that the new assistance program for struggling companies had already approved its first loan even though he hadn’t advertised the program.
As they spoke, Summers caught Granholm’s attention and mimed a request for some of her soda. She moved the bottle closer to him, smiling. He drank quickly, but it didn’t help. He shifted his weight in his chair. He made jerky, shaking motions with his head. He ran a hand through his hair. Still, by the time Mario Sciberras, of Saline Lectronics, was speaking about what he would do with one of the new loans, Summers was asleep. Read more at the New Yorker
The writer Ryan Lizza talks about the story:
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
