|
|
This article may be inaccurate in or unbalanced towards certain viewpoints. Please improve the article by adding information on neglected viewpoints, or discuss the issue on the talk page. (February 2009) |
Lawrence Henry Summers (born November 30, 1954) is an American economist and the Director of the White House's National Economic Council for President Barack Obama.[1] Summers is the Charles W. Eliot University Professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. He is the 1993 recipient of the John Bates Clark Medal for his work in several fields of economics and was Secretary of the Treasury for the last year and a half of the Clinton Administration. Summers also served as the 27th President of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. Summers resigned as Harvard's president in the wake of a no-confidence vote by Harvard faculty that resulted in part from Summers' conflict with Cornel West as well as a 2005 speech in which he suggested that women's under-representation in the top levels of academia is due to a "different availability of aptitude at the high end." Summers has also been criticized by some liberals for the centrist economic policies he advocated as Treasury Secretary and in later writings.[2] Since returning to government in the Obama administration, he has come under fire for his numerous financial ties to Wall Street.
Family and education
Born in New Haven, Connecticut, on November 30, 1954, Summers is the son of two economists, Robert Summers and Anita Summers, who are both professors at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as the nephew of two Nobel laureates in economics: Paul Samuelson (sibling of Robert Summers, who, following an older brother's example, changed the family name from Samuelson to Summers) and Kenneth Arrow (Anita Summers's brother). He spent most of his childhood in Penn Valley, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia, where he attended Harriton High School.
At age 16, he entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he originally intended to study physics but soon switched to economics (S.B., 1975). He was also an active member of the MIT debating team. He attended Harvard University as a graduate student (Ph.D., 1982), where he studied under economist Martin Feldstein. In 1983, at age 28, Summers became one of the youngest tenured professors in Harvard's history. Summers has three children (older twin daughters Ruth and Pamela and son Harry) with his first wife, Victoria Perry. In December 2005, Summers married English professor Elisa New, who had three daughters from a previous marriage. He currently owns two houses, one in D.C. and one in Brookline, Massachusetts.
Career
Academic economist
As a researcher, Summers has made important contributions in many areas of economics, primarily public finance, labor economics, financial economics, and macroeconomics. Some of Summers' early papers concluded that corporate and capital gains taxes are an inefficient form of taxation.[citation needed] Cutting the capital gains tax rate, Summers found, could help the economy grow.[citation needed] Later, while working in the Reagan and Clinton White Houses, Summers was able to lobby successfully for cuts in both corporate and capital gains taxes.[citation needed] One of Summers' prominent findings in labor economics is that unemployment insurance and welfare payments are a major contributor to unemployment, and therefore should be scaled back. [3]
Summers has also worked in international economics, economic demography, economic history, and development economics. His work generally emphasizes the analysis of empirical economic data in order to answer well-defined questions (for example: Does saving respond to after-tax interest rates? Are the returns from stocks and stock portfolios predictable?, Are most of those who receive unemployment benefits only transitorily unemployed?, etc.) For his work he received the John Bates Clark Medal in 1993 from the American Economic Association. In 1987 he was the first social scientist to win the Alan T. Waterman Award from the National Science Foundation. Summers is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Official portrait as Secretary of the Treasury
Public official
Summers was on the staff of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Reagan from 1982-1983. He also served as an economic adviser to the Dukakis Presidential campaign in 1988.
Chief Economist at the World Bank
Summers left Harvard in 1991 and served as Chief Economist for the World Bank until 1993.
'Dirty Industries'
In December 1991, while at the World Bank, Summers signed a memo written by staff economist Lant Pritchett, which was leaked. The memo apparently argued that free trade would not necessarily benefit the environment in developing countries. An aside to the memo, leaked to the press, sarcastically suggested that "I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that . . . I've always thought that under-populated countries in Africa are vastly underpolluted." [4]
Service in the Clinton Administration
In 1993 Summers was appointed Undersecretary for International Affairs and later in the United States Department of the Treasury under the Clinton Administration. In 1995, he was promoted to Deputy Secretary of the Treasury under his long-time political mentor Robert Rubin. In 1999, he succeeded Rubin as Secretary of the Treasury.
Much of Summers's tenure at the Treasury Department was focused on international economic issues. He was deeply involved in Clinton administration's effort to bail out Mexico and Russia when those nations had currency crises.[5] Summers encouraged then-Russian leader Boris Yeltsin to use the same "three-'ations'" of policy he advocated in the Clinton Administration-- "privatization, stabilization, and liberalization."[6]
Summers pressured the Korean government to raise its interest rates and balance its budget in the midst of a recession, policies criticized by Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz.[7] According to the book The Chastening, by Paul Blustein, during this crisis, Summers, along with Paul Wolfowitz, pushed for regime change in Indonesia.[8]
As Treasury Secretary, Summers led the Clinton Administration's opposition to tax cuts proposed by the Republican Congress in 1999. [9] Also during his stint in the Clinton Administration, Summers was successful in pushing for capital gains tax cuts.[citation needed] During the California energy crisis of 2000, then-Treasury Secretary Summers teamed with Alan Greenspan and Enron executive Kenneth Lay to lecture California Governor Gray Davis on the causes of the crisis, explaining that the problem was excessive government regulation.[10] Under the advice of Kenneth Lay, Summers urged Davis to relax California's environmental standards in order to reassure the markets.[11]
Summers hailed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999, which lifted more than six decades of restrictions against banks offering commercial banking, insurance, and investment services (by repealing key provisions in the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act): "Today Congress voted to update the rules that have governed financial services since the Great Depression and replace them with a system for the 21st century," Summers said.[12] "This historic legislation will better enable American companies to compete in the new economy."[12] Many critics, including President Barack Obama, have suggested the 2007 subprime mortgage financial crisis was caused by the partial repeal of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act.[13]
President of Harvard
He left the Treasury Department in 2001 when George W. Bush became President and returned to Harvard as its 27th President, serving from July 2001 until June 2006. He was Harvard's first Jewish president, and received praise from Harvard's Jewish community for his support. [14]
A number of his decisions at Harvard attracted public controversy:
Cornel West affair
In an October 2001 meeting, Summers criticized African American Studies department head Cornel West for missing three weeks of classes to work on the Bill Bradley presidential campaign, and complained that West was contributing to grade inflation. Summers also said that West's rap album was an embarrassment to the university, and that West needed to do more scholarly work. West denied the accusations.[15] West, who later called Summers both "uninformed" and "an unprincipled power player" in describing this encounter in his book Democracy Matters (2004), subsequently returned to Princeton University, where he taught prior to Harvard University.
Differences between the sexes
In January 2005, at a Conference on Diversifying the Science & Engineering Workforce sponsored by the National Bureau of Economic Research, Summers offended many people by his discussion of why women may have been underrepresented "in tenured positions in science and engineering at top universities and research institutions". In the previous year at Harvard, where Summers was president, 88 percent (28 of 32) of newly tenured faculty had been men.[16]
Summers began[17] by outlining three possible explanations for the higher proportion of men in high-end science and engineering positions. Two of the hypotheses were: (1) that women with children are unwilling or unable to work 80 hours per week in tenure track jobs and (2) that women are subject to both discrimination and different socialization. He argued that discrimination was economically unlikely because it would put institutions at a disadvantage compared to institutions that did not discriminate. And he dismissed socialization, claiming that research shows that socialization is rarely a factor in anything anyone thinks it is. [17]
His third and most controversial hypothesis was what he called "the different availability of aptitude at the high end". He said that his "best guess" was that "there are issues of intrinsic aptitude, and particularly of the variability of aptitude". He said that this variation, combined with other factors, "probably explains a fair amount of this problem."[17]
Summers claimed that he was adopting an "entirely positive, rather than normative approach" and that his remarks were intended to be an "attempt at provocation."[17] Nancy Hopkins, a professor of biology at MIT, walked out during the talk in disgust.[18] Summers' lunch-time talk drew accusations of sexism and careless scholarship, and an intense negative response followed, both nationally and at Harvard.[18]
The controversy contributed to his resigning his position as president of Harvard University the following year. And it has been said that the incident cost Summers the job of Treasury Secretary in Obama's Administration.[19]
Summers' opposition and support at Harvard
On March 15, 2005, members of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which instructs graduate students in GSAS and undergraduates in Harvard College, passed 218–185 a motion of "lack of confidence" in the leadership of Summers, with 18 abstentions. A second motion that offered a milder censure of the president passed 253 to 137, also with 18 abstentions.
The members of the Harvard Corporation, the University's highest governing body, are in charge of the selection of the president and issued statements strongly supporting Summers.
FAS faculty were not unanimous in their comments on Summers. Influential psychologist Steven Pinker defended the legitimacy of Summers' January lecture. When asked if Summers' talk was "within the pale of legitimate academic discourse," Pinker responded "Good grief, shouldn’t everything be within the pale of legitimate academic discourse, as long as it is presented with some degree of rigor? That’s the difference between a university and a madrassa. [...] There is certainly enough evidence for the hypothesis to be taken seriously."[20]
Summers had stronger support among Harvard College students than among the college faculty. One poll by the Harvard Crimson indicated that students opposed his resignation by a three-to-one margin, with 57% of responding students opposing his resignation and 19% supporting it.[21]
In July 2005, the only African-American board member of Harvard Corporation, Conrad K. Harper, resigned saying he was angered both by the university president's comments about women and by Summers being given a salary increase. The resignation letter to the president said, "I could not and cannot support a raise in your salary, ... I believe that Harvard's best interests require your resignation."[22][23]
Support of economist Andrei Shleifer
Harvard and Andrei Shleifer, a close friend and protege of Summers, settled a $26M lawsuit by the U.S. government over the conflict of interest Shleifer had while advising Russia's privatisation program. Summers' continued support for Shleifer strengthened Summers' unpopularity with other professors:
"I’ve been a member of this Faculty for over 45 years, and I am no longer easily shocked," is how Frederick H. Abernathy, the McKay professor of mechanical engineering, began his biting comments about the Shleifer case at Tuesday’s fiery Faculty meeting. But, Abernathy continued, "I was deeply shocked and disappointed by the actions of this University" in the Shleifer affair.
In an 18,000-word article in Institutional Investor (January, 2006), the magazine detailed Shleifer’s alleged efforts to use his inside knowledge of and sway over the Russian economy in order to make lucrative personal investments, all while leading a Harvard group, advising the Russian government, that was under contract with the U.S. The article suggests that Summers shielded his fellow economist from disciplinary action by the University.[24] Summers' friendship with Shleifer was well known by the Corporation when it selected him to succeed Rudenstine and Summers recused himself from all proceedings with Shleifer, whose case was actually handled by an independent committee led by Derek Bok.
Resignation as Harvard President
On February 21, 2006, Summers announced his intention to step down at the end of the school year effective June 30, 2006. Former University President Derek Bok acted as Interim President while the University conducted a search for a replacement which ended with the naming of Drew Gilpin Faust on February 11, 2007. After a one year sabbatical, Summers subsequently accepted the University's invitation to serve as the Charles W. Eliot University Professor, one of twenty select University-wide professorships, with offices in the Kennedy School of Government and the Harvard Business School.[25] He also joined the D. E. Shaw Group in October 2006 as a part-time managing director.[26] Summers also has been authoring a column for the Financial Times.[27]
Post-Harvard career
President
Barack Obama, on left, discusses with a group in the White House, including Larry Summers on far right (back to camera)
On October 19, 2006, he became a part-time managing director of the investment and technology development firm D. E. Shaw & Co. He was paid $5.2 million in his second of two years working there, while working just one day a week.[1]
Upon the death of libertarian economist Milton Friedman, Summers wrote an Op-Ed in The New York Times entitled "The Great Liberator" arguing that "any honest Democrat will admit that we are now all Friedmanites." Summers wrote that while Friedman made real contributions to monetary policy, his real contribution was "in convincing people of the importance of allowing free markets to operate."[28]
Henry Kissinger once said that Larry Summers should "be given a White House post in which he was charged with shooting down or fixing bad ideas." [29]
In 2006 he was a member of the Panel of Eminent Persons which reviewed the work of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
He is currently the director of the White House National Economic Council[1][30].
National Economic Council
In January 2009, as the Obama Administration tried to pass an economic stimulus spending bill, Oregon Democratic Representative Peter DeFazio criticized Summers, saying that he thought that President Barack Obama is "ill-advised by Larry Summers. Larry Summers hates infrastructure." [31]. DeFazio, along with liberal economists including Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz, has argued that more of the stimulus should be spent on infrastructure,[32] while Summers has supported tax cuts.[citation needed]
Relations between Summers, President Obama's top economic adviser, and former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker have also been strained recently, as Volcker has accused Summers of delaying the effort to organize a panel of outside economic advisers, and has cut Volcker out of White House meetings and has not shown interest in collaborating on policy solutions to the current economic crisis. [33]
Summers has recently come under fire for accepting perks from Citigroup, including free rides on its corporate jet last summer.[34] According to the Wall Street Journal, Larry Summers called Chris Dodd asking him to remove caps on executive pay at firms which have received stimulus money, including Citigroup. [35]
On April 3, 2009 Summers came under renewed criticism after it was disclosed that he was paid millions of dollars the previous year by companies which he now has influence over as a public servant. He earned $5 million from the hedge fund D. E. Shaw, and collected $2.7 million in speaking fees from Wall Street companies that received government bailout money.[36]
Notes
References
- ^ a b change.gov (November 24, 2008). "Geithner, Summers among key economic team members announced today" (Official website). Newsroom. Office of the President-elect. http://change.gov/newsroom/entry/geithner_summers_among_key_economic_team_members_announced_today/. Retrieved on November 24, 2008.
- ^ Obama picks Summers as top economic adviser. CNN Money. November 23, 2008.
- ^ Summers, Larry. "Unemployment". The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Unemployment.html.
- ^ Office Memorandum from Lawrence M. Summers, Subject: GEP, the World Bank/IMFMIGA, 12 Dec 1991. This was an internal memo at the World Bank not intended for the public that highlighted the economic logic of dumping waste in less-developed countries.
- ^ A New Economic Team: The Nominee; The Administration's Fiscal Closer. The New York Times. May 13, 1999.
- ^ Naomi Klein, "The Shock Doctrine" page 231
- ^ Blustein, Paul (2001). "'The Chastening'". Public Affairs, New York. http://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/publicaffairsbooks-cgi-bin/display?book=9781586481810.
- ^ Blustein, Paul (2001). "'The Chastening'". Public Affairs, New York. p. 232. http://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/publicaffairsbooks-cgi-bin/display?book=9781586481810.
- ^ Aides Say Clinton Would Veto Tax Compromise. The Washington Post. July 26, 1999.
- ^ Krugman, Paul. "California Energy Memories". The New York Times. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/california-energy-memories/.
- ^ Gibney, Alex. "Larry Summers' Enron Problem". The Daily Beast. http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-11-12/larry-summers-and-enron/.
- ^ a b Labaton, Stephen (November 5, 1999). "Congress Passes Wide Ranging Law Repealing Bank laws". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/05/business/congress-passes-wide-ranging-bill-easing-bank-laws.html. Retrieved on March 25, 2009.
- ^ "Ten Questions for Those Fixing the Financial Mess". Wall Street Journal. March 10, 2009. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123665023774979341.html. Retrieved on March 26, 2009.
- ^ Harvard’s First Jewish President. The Harvard Crimson. March 8, 2006
- ^ "Some seek a scholar's return". Boston Globe. June 6, 2006. http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/06/06/some_seek_a_scholars_return/.
- ^ http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/01/17/summers_remarks_on_women_draw_fire/
- ^ a b c d Archive of: Remarks at NBER Conference on Diversifying the Science & Engineering Workforce. January 14, 2005.
- ^ a b Summer's Remarks on Women Draw Fire. The Boston Globe. January 17, 2005
- ^ Summers' 'sexism' costs him top Treasury job. The Independent. November 24, 2008
- ^ Psychoanalysis Q-and-A: Steven Pinker. The Harvard Crimson. January 19, 2005
- ^ Poll: Students Say Summers Should Stay. The Harvard Crimson. February 20, 2006
- ^ A Harvard Governor, Dissatisfied, Resigns July 29, 2005
- ^ Board Member's Letter of Resignation. The New York Times. August 2, 2005
- ^ ‘Tawdry Shleifer Affair’ Stokes Faculty Anger Toward Summers. The Harvard Crimson. February 10, 2006
- ^ Schuker, Daniel J. T. (July 7, 2006). "Summers Named Eliot Univ. Prof". The Harvard Crimson. http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=513918.
- ^ Burton, Katherine (October 19, 2006). "Summers, Former Treasury Secretary, Joins D.E. Shaw". Bloomberg. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=arlvVTVwttZw&refer=home.
- ^ Lawrence Summers, Columist as Financial Times.
- ^ Summers, Larry (November 19, 2006). "The Great Liberator". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/19/opinion/19summers.html.
- ^ Leonhardt, David (November 25, 2008). "The Return of Larry Summers". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/26/business/economy/26leonhardt.html.
- ^ Bohan, Caren (November 24, 2008). "Obama taps Geithner, Summers". U.S. News (Reuters). http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE4AM0A220081123. Retrieved on November 24, 2008.
- ^ DeFazio, Peter; Video Interview (January 2008). "DeFazio Slams Summers". http://firedoglake.com/2009/01/23/defazio-smacks-larry-summers-for-being-anti-infrastructure/.
- ^ Krugman, Paul (January 6, 2009). "Stimulus Arithmetic (wonkish but important)". The New York Times. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/06/stimulus-arithmetic-wonkish-but-important/.
- ^ Schmidt, Robert; Julianna Goldman (February 5, 2009). "= Volcker Chafes at Obama Panel Delay, Strains With Summers Rise". Bloomberg. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aaLzJZKNcc6Y =.
- ^ Fitzgerald, Jay (February 11, 2009). "= Larry Summers Jet Ride Called Part of Larger Problem". Boston Herald. http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view/2009_02_11_Larry_Summers__jet_ride_called_part_of_larger_problem/ =.
- ^ Soloman, Deborah; Mark Maremont (February 14-15, 2009). "[= Bankers Face Strict Pay Cap]". Wall Street Journal. pp. 1, above the fold. =.
- ^ Zeleny, Jeff (April 3, 2009). "Financial Industry Paid Millions to Obama Aide". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/04/us/politics/04disclose.html. Retrieved on April 4, 2009.
External links
|
Barack Obama's Executive Office of the President |
|
|
Office
|
Name
|
Term
|
Office
|
Name
|
Term
|
| White House Chief of Staff |
Rahm Emmanuel |
since 2009 |
National Security Advisor |
Jim Jones |
since 2009 |
| White House Deputy Chief of Staff |
Mona Sutphen |
since 2009 |
Deputy National Security Advisor |
Thomas E. Donilon |
since 2009 |
| White House Deputy Chief of Staff |
Jim Messina |
since 2009 |
Deputy National Security Advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan |
Douglas Lute† |
since 2009 |
| Senior Advisor to the President |
David Axelrod |
since 2009 |
Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications |
Denis McDonough |
since 2009 |
| Senior Advisor to the President |
Peter Rouse |
since 2009 |
Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security |
John O. Brennan |
since 2009 |
| Senior Advisor to the President and Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement |
Valerie Jarrett |
since 2009 |
White House Communications Director
Deputy White House Communications Director |
Anita Dunn
Dan Pfeiffer |
since 2009
since 2009 |
| Director of Public Engagement |
Christina Tchen |
since 2009 |
White House Press Secretary |
Robert Gibbs |
since 2009 |
| Director of Intergovernmental Affairs |
Cecilia Muñoz |
since 2009 |
Deputy Press Secretary |
Bill Burton |
since 2009 |
| Director, National Economic Council |
Lawrence Summers |
since 2009 |
Deputy Press Secretary |
Jennifer Psaki |
since 2009 |
| Deputy Director, National Economic Council |
Diana Farrell |
since 2009 |
Deputy Press Secretary |
Josh Earnest |
since 2009 |
| Deputy Director, National Economic Council |
Jason Furman |
since 2009 |
Director of Speechwriting |
Jon Favreau |
since 2009 |
| Chair of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board |
Paul Volcker |
since 2009 |
White House Counsel |
Greg Craig |
since 2009 |
| Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors |
Christina Romer |
since 2009 |
Deputy White House Counsel |
Cassandra Butts |
since 2009 |
| Member of the Council of Economic Advisors and Staff Director of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board |
Austan Goolsbee |
since 2009 |
Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs
Deputy Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs |
Phil Schiliro
Lisa Konwinski |
since 2009
since 2009 |
| Member of the Council of Economic Advisors |
Cecilia Rouse |
since 2009 |
Executive Clerk |
George T. Saunders† |
since 2009 |
| Director, Office of Management and Budget |
Peter R. Orszag |
since 2009 |
Director, Office of Political Affairs |
Patrick Gaspard |
since 2009 |
| Chief Performance Officer and Deputy Director for Management, Office of Management and Budget |
Jeffrey Zients |
since 2009 |
Chief Technology Officer
Chief Information Officer |
Aneesh Chopra
Vivek Kundra |
since 2009
since 2009 |
| Deputy Director, Office of Management and Budget |
Rob Nabors |
since 2009 |
Director, National Cyber Security Center |
Phil Reitinger* |
since 2009 |
| United States Trade Representative |
Ron Kirk |
since 2009 |
Director, Office of Presidential Personnel |
Don Gips |
since 2009 |
| Director, Domestic Policy Council |
Melody Barnes |
since 2009 |
Director of Scheduling and Advance |
Alyssa Mastromonaco |
since 2009 |
| Deputy Director, Domestic Policy Council |
Heather Higginbottom |
since 2009 |
Director, White House Military Office |
vacant |
since 2009 |
| Director, Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships |
Joshua DuBois |
since 2009 |
Cabinet Secretary |
Chris Lu |
since 2009 |
| Director, Office of Health Reform |
Nancy DeParle |
since 2009 |
Deputy Cabinet Secretary |
Liz Sears Smith |
since 2009 |
| Deputy Director, Office of Health Reform |
Jeanne Lambrew |
since 2009 |
Staff Secretary |
Lisa Brown |
since 2009 |
| Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change |
Carol Browner |
since 2009 |
Director of Recovery for Auto Communities and Workers |
Edward B. Montgomery |
since 2009 |
| Deputy Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change |
Heather Zichal |
since 2009 |
Director, Office of Management and Administration |
Bradley Kiley |
since 2009 |
| Director, Office of National AIDS Policy |
Jeffrey Crowley |
since 2009 |
Director, Oval Office Operations |
Micaela Fernandez |
since 2009 |
| Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy |
Gil Kerlikowske |
since 2009 |
Personal Aide to the President |
Reggie Love |
since 2009 |
| Deputy Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy |
A. Thomas McLellan* |
since 2009 |
Personal Secretary to the President |
Katie Johnson |
since 2009 |
| Director, Council on Environmental Quality |
Nancy Sutley |
since 2009 |
Special Projects Coordinator and Confidential Assistant to the President |
Eugene Kang |
since 2009 |
| Director, Office of Urban Affairs Policy |
Adolfo Carrión, Jr. |
since 2009 |
Chief of Staff to the First Lady |
Susan Sher |
since 2009 |
| Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy |
John Holdren |
since 2009 |
White House Social Secretary |
Desirée Rogers |
since 2009 |
|
|
| *Senate-confirmation pending. †Remained from previous administration(s). |
|
| Persondata |
| NAME |
Summers, Lawrence |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES |
|
| SHORT DESCRIPTION |
Former US Secretary of the Treasury |
| DATE OF BIRTH |
November 30, 1954 (1954-11-30) (age 54) |
| PLACE OF BIRTH |
New Haven, Connecticut |
| DATE OF DEATH |
|
| PLACE OF DEATH |
|
Global capital markets pose the same kinds of problems that jet planes do. They are faster, more comfortable, and they get you where you are going better. But the crashes are much more spectacular.
