Larry Summers Withdraws From Fed Chairman Race

[ThePythonicCow]

Well - this one surprised me - Larry Summers, the front runner to be nominated to replace Ben Bernanke as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, has withdrawn his name from consideration. It had been expected that he would be nominated this coming week. Bernanke's current term ends in January 2014.

From Larry Summers Withdraws From Fed Chairman Race (ZeroHedge) (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-09-15/summers-withdraws-fed-chairman-race):





Dear Mr. President,

I am writing to withdraw my name for consideration to be Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

It has been a privilege to work with you since the beginning of your Administration as you led the nation through a severe recession into a sustained economic recovery built on policies to promote employment and strengthen the middle class.

This is a complex moment in our national life. I have reluctantly concluded that any possible confirmation process for me would be acrimonious and would not serve the interests of the Federal Reserve, the Administration, or ultimately, the interests of the nation’s ongoing economic recovery.

I look forward to continuing to support your efforts to strengthen our national economy by creating a broad based prosperity and to reform our financial system so that no President ever again faces what you and your economic team faced upon taking office in 2009.

Sincerely yours,

Lawrence Summers

[ThePythonicCow]

Eric Janszen, on the subscribers only side of iTulip.com, is the best analyst of the Federal Reserve I know of. I won't say exactly what he said ... but let's just say that it's my view now that we aren't sure whether Summers pulled out because (1) he didn't figure he'd pass the nomination process, or (2) he figured the next Fed Reserve chairman had an impossible job ahead of him. Next question: will Janet Yellen pull out of consideration too?

[giovonni]

apparently he is too much of a douchebag for even these criminal dirtballs ... :p

[ThePythonicCow]

More news and analysis of this from Bloomberg: Summers Withdraws From Consideration for Fed Chairmanship (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-15/obama-said-he-accepted-summers-decision-to-withdraw-his-name.html)

[Sidney]

Well - this one surprised me - Larry Summers, the front runner to be nominated to replace Ben Bernanke as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, has withdrawn his name from consideration. It had been expected that he would be nominated this coming week. Bernanke's current term ends in January 2014.

From Larry Summers Withdraws From Fed Chairman Race (ZeroHedge) (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-09-15/summers-withdraws-fed-chairman-race):





Dear Mr. President,

I am writing to withdraw my name for consideration to be Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

It has been a privilege to work with you since the beginning of your Administration as you led the nation through a severe recession into a sustained economic recovery built on policies to promote employment and strengthen the middle class.

This is a complex moment in our national life. I have reluctantly concluded that any possible confirmation process for me would be acrimonious and would not serve the interests of the Federal Reserve, the Administration, or ultimately, the interests of the nation’s ongoing economic recovery.

I look forward to continuing to support your efforts to strengthen our national economy by creating a broad based prosperity and to reform our financial system so that no President ever again faces what you and your economic team faced upon taking office in 2009.

Sincerely yours,

Lawrence Summers


"as you led the nation through a severe recession into a sustained economic recovery built on policies to promote employment and strengthen the middle class."

Geez- I didn't get THAT memo..ROTFLMAO

[ThePythonicCow]

Geez- I didn't get THAT memo..ROTFLMAO
You must be out of the loop, Sidney ... sorry :).

[T Smith]

According to John Williams 2014 will mark the onset of hyperinflation. Not sure I'd want to be the chairman when that happens.

[ghostrider]

who would want to be the fall guy when it all comes down , not Mr. Summers ...

[ThePythonicCow]

Perhaps (an amusing consideration at least) this is part of the reason that Larry Summers withdrew his name from consideration: Geithner asked Larry Summers to hold secret meetings with top bankers (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?63401-Geithner-asked-Larry-Summers-to-hold-secret-meetings-with-top-bankers).

[ThePythonicCow]

Well, someone likes this news: BREAKING: Stock Futures Soar to All-Time High after Larry Summers Withdraws from Fed Chairman Race (InvestmentWatchBlog) (http://investmentwatchblog.com/breaking-stock-futures-soar-to-all-time-high-after-larry-summers-withdraws-from-fed-chairman-race/)





“The (potential) hawk is dead, long live the doves,” appears the chorus of approving ‘traders’ who have just bid the S&P 500 futures up over 1% to a new all-time high. The USD is getting monkey-hammered, Gold futures jumped $20 and Silver futures are up 3.5% (from the Friday PM fix) but are fading back close to the Friday trading close. Treasury futures open up over 1 point (implying 30Y -4bps, 10Y -8bps, 5Y -11bps) – jubilant at the money-printing to come – oh and WTI crude is -1.3% at $107.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-09-15/more-official-reactions-summers-stunner

And just like that, the Summers of the democrats’ discontent is gone (who for some reason saw Larry as the more hawkish of the two Fed candidates, when in reality it would have been Summers that would unleash Bernanke’s money choppers), as are all those unbooked profits by Paddy Power betters who saw Summers as a 85% odds on favorite to become the next Fed chair, and are now left with nothing.

[giovonni]

apparently the fed's are eying a shrinking violet with some real balls to fill the position ... :rolleyes:

Janet Yellen at a crucial point in Fed's future http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSM1CNuzWR4XVmkmqRLyfsQp5VV-1-HKXMuJN0dmM-0Kl-KpNI4rA

Two momentous decisions involving the Federal Reserve are coming to a head, with significant implications for the U.S. and global economies... Janet L. Yellen, a former University of California, Berkeley economist, stands in the middle of both of them here ... (http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/09/14/202170/janet-yellen-at-a-crucial-point.html#.UjZ8zT_iQ1J)

[Lefty Dave]

I believe it all comes down to this....you can't fix a problem using the same principles (als !) that broke it ....

I feel it would be more prudent to let the fed charter expire and insist the Treasury supply our currency , interest free US Notes, for the foreseeable future...as well as a complete audit of our 'books' by a body with subpoena and arrest powers.
end of line.

[GlassSteagallfan]

I feel it would be more prudent to let the fed charter expire and insist the Treasury supply our currency , interest free US Notes, for the foreseeable future...as well as a complete audit of our 'books' by a body with subpoena and arrest powers.
end of line.

That's what the re-enactment of Glass-Steagall would do. The banks are already spending millions to stop the Glass-Steagall momentum.


22872

Is Janet Yellin Larry Summers in Drag?

[Selene]

Interesting commentary and some possible motives from Eamonn Fingleton in Forbes.com:


… As Joseph Stiglitz has pointed out, few economists deserve more blame for the financial trainwreck of the last five years than Summers. In a blog for the New York Times a few days ago, Stiglitz, who won the Nobel prize for economics in 2001, commented: “As a Treasury Department official during the Clinton administration, Mr. Summers supported banking deregulation, including the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which was pivotal in America’s financial crisis. His great ‘achievement’ as secretary of the Treasury, from 1999 to 2001, was passage of the law that ensured that derivatives would not be regulated — a decision that helped blow up the financial markets.”

Stiglitz added: “Some of those who were responsible for these key policy mistakes have admitted the fundamental ‘flaws’ in their analyses. Mr. Summers, to my knowledge, has not.”

Stiglitz has also pointed out that Summers’s record of egregious error goes back at least to the mid 1990s, when he encouraged East Asian nations quickly to liberalize their capital markets, a development that led straight to the Asian financial crisis.

To cap it all, Summers has seemed far too close to the seamier side of Wall Street. According to Michelle Malkin, writing in the New York Post, he received no less than $135,000 for one speech from Goldman Sachs in 2008. He also made out like a bandit from speakers’ fees from JPMorganChase and Citigroup not to mention such outright disaster zones as Merrill Lynch (the crippled “thundering herd” outfit that has had to be ignominiously rescued by Bank of America and Lehman Brothers. As reported by Clea Benson of Bloomberg Summers’s net worth as of 2009 was at least $17 million, more than 40 times the figure he reported in 1999. What made the difference was Wall Street’s unerring generosity towards those public intellectuals whose ideas sell the American public interest down the river.

Am I being too harsh? Not at all. Those of us who criticize Summers’s record aren’t all merely wise after the fact. A lot of people over the years have insisted on comprehensive financial regulation, not least the architects of the late 1930s Glass-Steagall system, which kept the U.S. banks out of trouble for more than four decades — the best four decades in American economic history….

Read the rest here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/eamonnfingleton/2013/09/15/the-best-news-for-america-this-year-larry-summers-drops-out-of-fed-chairman-tussle/

Cheers,

Selene