And a Happy Thanksgiving to You
Posted on November 26th, 2009 in Uncategorized | 10 Comments »
May you enjoy a day free of Joe Lieberman, Sarah Palin, Lou Dobbs, and other nefarious ne’er-do-wells!
Also: May the Giants, even though I have not emotionally committed to them this season, obliterate the Broncos.
10 Responses
11/26/2009 11:59 am
Can’t believe you’re not all over the news today: Polanski gets a Get Out Of Jail Free card, and then this:
http://gawker.com/5413186/white-house-party-crashers-are-awesome-sad?skyline=true&s=i
11/29/2009 6:12 pm
Your post tomorrow on this article in the Globe should generate some lively conversation: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/11/29/harvard_ignored_warnings_about_investments/?page=full
11/29/2009 7:43 pm
The article is pretty explicity Anon. Larry Summers pursued a risky investment strategy which generated remarkable gains for Harvard. As he was leaving Harvard he indicated that the economy was changing. Had he remained on the post he would have likely changed his stance towards a more conservative strategy to manage the Bank.
But he was succeeded by Presidents with far less knowledge of economic and financial matters than he did. Derek Bok admits that he did not focus on finances.
The real question the Globe article raises, loud and clear, and front and center in page one, is why did President Faust and those managing Harvard with her not change what was an obviously unsound strategy to manage the Bank when she took office?
11/29/2009 8:21 pm
@ Anon 7:43pm - while I appreciate your attempt to defend Larry Summers, your surmise about his potential actions is unsupported by any evidence at all. More likely, Summers, Bok, and Faust all share significant responsibilities for this debacle with the Harvard Corporation, which Harry Lewis wisely targets in his quoted remarks in the article.
11/29/2009 10:30 pm
Summers could not have planned to move the bank investments to a less aggressive posture because he needed that income for the long run. The problem with the “8.9% isn’t chopped liver” line of defense is that he kept presenting and the Corporation kept approving budgets in which the EXPENSES grew at more than that rate — the only way to cover the expenses Harvard was intentionally assuming was to count on double-digit growth in the endowment, and in the return on the cash reserves too.
11/29/2009 11:16 pm
Which is why debt-financing of buildings (some now holes in the ground) started in 2000, under Summers. His 2007 CYA reservations, long after Roubini and others had led the way in pointing to the the mess we were about to be in, were simply that. Harry Lewis was right to finger Harvard’s administrative structures in today’s Globe.
All you need to know/google: Brooksley Born; Iris M. Mack
11/29/2009 11:28 pm
Even if Summers acted incorrectly, the more pertinent question now is what did the current President do to prevent this debacle. Its bad enough that Harvard put up for far too long with ONE bad President in Summers. There is no need for an encore.
11/29/2009 11:31 pm
The reports about gifts to the university for the last year stink. Its getting pretty hard to fundraise for Harvard.
11/29/2009 11:47 pm
Really, Anon 11:31? I thought FAS did OK with current gifts, but I have no real information and you don’t give any, so who knows?
11/30/2009 7:35 am
Since several presidents took the current account funds of the schools and invested them in the market, without authorization to do so, central admin should return those funds in their entirety to the schools, drawing on the endowment for central aggressively grown under LHS.