The Summers Watch
Speaking of Larry Summers...a few tidbits.
...he's in Davos, where a Bloomberg press release describes him as "Harvard Professor and D.E. Shaw & Co," c.f. this blog's previous discussion of how hedge funds are hiring politicos for their access, particularly with international powerbrokers. Was it part of Summers' contract that he co-byline himself? And has anyone ever seen a Harvard professor co-brand in such a fashion?
John Smith, Harvard professor and J.P. Morgan.....
Summers is now saying that the nation's financial markets "have been handicapped by post-Enron overreach," according to the Wall Street Journal. Could there be any connection between this anti-regulatory point of view and his new state of employ?
And while Summers is in Switzerland, alleged anti-Semitism—the kind Summers famously decried—has returned to campus: a Stanford group, Students Confronting Apartheid in Israel, is calling for the university to selectively divest from companies with ties to Israel. Will this issue take on new life, thanks to Jimmy Carter (who yesterday signed books in Harvard Square)?
Finally, some of you will remember just how bizarre I found the phenomenon of undergraduates asking Larry Summers to sign dollar bills—and Summers doing it. The image of a Harvard president signing money for the undergraduates struck such a ghastly note about what Summers was really teaching them. (Can you imagine Bok's reaction to such a request? One suspects he'd be simultaneously mortified and appalled.)
But perhaps I am old-fashioned. Because watching the State of the Union, I gather that there's a new tradition in Congress: As Bush left the House chamber, members of Congress, like jejune, desperate supplicants—or college freshmen—thrust their programs toward the president for him to autograph.
Next, Congress will line up outside the Today show and hold up signs in the hopes that Al Roker will notice them......
