MarkW

Why Obama Should Not Choose Summers as Treasury Secretary

I agree. The man is an autistic savant. The kind of person you want to call on for advice but keep far away from managing a huge cabinet Department full of accomplished professionals who are used to being treated with a modicum of respect for their abilities. Don't demoralize the place during such a difficult time, you know?

Summers' "inartful" comments about third world countries needing more of our toxic waste because "life is worth less there" will also not be helpful in dealing with South America and Africa.

I think Obama should take a look at FDIC head Sheila Bair, who talked herself hoarse about the dangers of the subprime lending craze to anyone who would listen - which unfortunately for us was too few people who were in charge at the time. She's an expert on mortgages, which is one of the burning issues of the moment. Tim Geithner sounds like top-notch material, but he's needed at the NY Fed and not picking him might also make it easier for Summers to not feel slighted, since the two are so closely linked. Perhaps in that way Obama can keep good relations with both men and hold onto them as informal counsel.

My Bet: Larry Summers Will Be Chosen as Treasury Secretary

Dr./Mr. Frankel, nice try. But your attempt at running interference for your friend and former colleague falls short.

First of all, I don't quite understand why you are calling his prepared and premeditated keynote address before a major academic conference "off the record remarks". At every conference I've ever attended, an academician is assumed to be responsible for the content of his talk.

Dr. Summers' remarks that day were certainly "provocative", so if that was the sole expectation people had of his talk, he certainly delivered. Unfortunately, the president of an academic institution (especially one of the most prestigious in the world) has a slightly higher standard to meet than that. Namely, some academic rigor is required. To be fair, asking an economist to deliver a comprehensive treatise on an interdisciplinary area as far afield from his as developmental psychology/biology and organizational sociology is a tall task. If he lacked the humility (which I now understand that he does, systematically) to at least run his speech by some of the accomplished developmental psychologists at his own institution, then he should have simply declined to speak and saved everyone some grief.

I would run down the gaping holes in his arguments here, but this has been done to death elsewhere. Let it suffice to say that his "intuition" regarding "mommy trucks" and "daddy trucks" are not adequate replacements for a vast literature, of which he cited merely a small sliver of the relevant work (yes, I have re-read the transcript). And sadly, he demonstrated an utter, gaping blind spot to the one factor cited (anecdotally, granted) by the women scientists I have worked with as the prime reason for attrition in the field: the subtle but pervasive sexism in the day-to-day business of a woman's transactions in the academic science world. It is this sort of thing that most often has women throwing up their hands and saying, "it's just not worth it". Summers' ignorance on this issue is ironically another example. It may be more benign than malicious in his case, but it is there nonetheless.

Please try to take the time to speak with some women scientists about summers' take on the issue before you write off the significance of their objections to his talk.

He may be the best choice for Secretary of Treasury on a purely technical basis. But heading such an executive department is also about managing a large number of accomplished women as well as men. These people all have to be reasonably comfortable with him. I can understand why some very bright women would have doubts about whether they are in a place where their work and thoughts are valued appropriately in an organization headed by him.