Lunch with the FT: Larry Summers
OPS_admin | Jul 11, 2009 | Comments 0
Lunch with the FT: Larry Summers - FT.com
Summers On Recession: “I Don’t Think The Worst Is Over”
Larry Summers, director of the US president’s National Economic Council, usually eats at his White House desk or sitting around a nearby table with other members of the economic team. But today, for Lunch with the FT, Summers’ aides have persuaded him to walk down the stairs to the Ward Room, a windowless alcove near the White House mess. The dark-wood panelling and nautically themed paintings are meant to evoke a naval officer’s dining room but these grace notes are muted by the plastic cutlery, paper plates and drinks sipped straight from their plastic bottles.
As he flips open a plastic box of Caesar salad with grilled chicken and unscrews the cap of a bottle of Diet Coke, Summers makes small talk – his son’s killer swing on the golf course, his own weekend tennis plans. But Summers – whom I first met as an undergraduate 20 years ago when I dropped into his office at Harvard to ask about the economic advice he was giving to the leaders of what was then the Soviet Socialist Republic of Lithuania – is not known for his casual conversation.
via FT.com / Columnists / Lunch with the FT – Lunch with the FT: Larry Summers.
Filed Under: Economy - Labor
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If we don't change our ways soon...
A new report by the Royal Society, chaired by Nobel prize-winning biologist Sir John Sulston warns that world population must be stabilized and consumption in wealthy nations must be reduced or the entire planet is in big trouble. As the report reads: "The number of people living on the planet has never been higher, their levels of consumption are unprecedented and vast changes are taking place in the environment. We can choose to rebalance the use of resources to a more egalitarian pattern of consumption... or we can choose to do nothing and to drift into a downward spiral of economic and environmental ills leading to a more unequal and inhospitable future."This is the same warning that President Jimmy Carter gave Americans back in the 1970's - but it was ignored when Ronald Reagan came to power with a "more positive" message basically telling Americans we can do whatever we want. And then after 9/11 - Bush told us all we should go shopping and consume ever more.And now with corporations calling the shots in Washington - long-term sustainability of the planet takes a back seat to short-term profits. If we don't change our ways soon - and embrace clean, alternative energy and educate women around the plant - then we all could be headed for a rough century.-Thom(Is there any chance we will learn in time? Tell us here.) -
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