Summers sees an end to economic free-fall in 'next few months'
Filed under: Economy
White House economic advisor Lawrence Summers sang another chorus of the Obama administration's lullaby about the economy today.Speaking to the Economic Club of Washington, Summers assured listeners that the "sense of a ball falling off the table" is receding, and that he is reasonably confident that within a few months we'll no longer feel a sense of free-fall.
Other administration officials have been singing the same tune lately. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on 'Face the Nation' Sunday that, "There are encouraging signs... but it's going to take some time."
Friday, Fed Chairman Bernanke said, referring to actions to bolster the credit market, "As best we can tell, these programs are working."
All was not beer and skittles in Summer's speech, however. He stated that he still sees 'substantial downdrafts' in the overall economy, including strains in the credit market. Summers also continued the administration's efforts to position healthcare reform as a necessary part of a full recovery.
Responding to public calls for increased regulation of investment products, Summers said that an effort was underway to put in place a 'systemic risk regulator' -- someone who would also deal with the toxic assets currently clogging up bank balance sheets. Perhaps the creation of this new position will appease those calling for Obama to appoint a "Bank Czar."
Summers disputed the claim by critics that he didn't do enough as Treasury Secretary under Clinton to safeguard the country's financial system and that he enabled the explosive growth of derivatives. The world "changed in profound ways," in the years since he had Geithner's job, he said. Very few people recognized the problems that would result, he said.
Summers also didn't mention that sometimes the way free-falls end is with a splat. Such negativity isn't in the adminstration's songbook.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-09-2009 @ 8:47PM
clikdawg said...
See, you gotta learn to interpret these guys and their optimistic statements, and to do that you have to understand that the word "we" refers to Summers and his class -- that would be the scum that you and I have been "bailing out".
He does not mean "we" in the sense of Americans in general, or taxpayers, or any other nationally-inclusive group; he means the very small subset to which he and his buds belong.
That's the "we" for whom the ball no longer seems to be falling off the table; for whom the "next few months" should see an easing of the burden.
All clear?
Oh, yeah -- it is also helpful to add the phrase "for us" to statements about the efficacy of the stimulus and bail-out "initiatives". Thus Bernanke's, "As best we can tell, these programs are working (for us)" suddenly blossoms into something with an intelligible connection to the Real World.
Many of the techniques we learned while struggling to decode BushSpeak will come in quite handy when deciphering the New (Change You Can Believe In) ObamaBlather ...
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4-09-2009 @ 10:55PM
RuleYourMoney said...
I see the end to economic free-fall too. However, I see long long period of stagnation in American economy and fall of US currency in middle term, because of huge budget deficit and country debt.
Creation of bank for toxic actives is a good idea though. At least it did work in Japan in 90th...
O. from http://RuleYourMoney.com
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4-10-2009 @ 12:26AM
clikdawg said...
Not to belabor the obvious, Rule -- but a "long long period of stagnation" translates directly into a continued free-fall for huge sections of the American population; a greater and greater number of famiie unable to meet basic financial obligations.
As to Japan in the 90's, a few questions:
Was systemic corruption (and I mean in each and every part of the system) as widespread there as it is here?
How big a percentage of the total economy did their toxics represent as opposed to ours?
Do the economic tenets that hold true in a decently industrialized nation like Japan apply to a radically de-industrialized nation like the US?
Isn't Japan's internal social cohesion a great deal firmer than our own? Do you understand what an enormous impact that has on any solution at all?
Kindly back your answers up with facts and figures, please -- very, very useful when comparing apples and oranges ...
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4-11-2009 @ 12:55PM
lena said...
Things will improve on the ratio that people believe in their own power. if you all are functioning on scary movie scenarios things can be terriible like 9 11 or y2k or rove/cheeny trying to destroy this country to get back in power to benefit their friends again . just stay off the negative and learn that if you think good or bad you can create it
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