The Larry Summers brouhaha
Larry Summers, the director of President Obama's National Economic Council, received millions of dollars --- GUILTY --- in compensation the 16 months --- GUILTY --- before assuming his office. The compensation came both from his job at a hedge fund --- GUILTY --- and in speaker fees before myriad groups including investment banks --- GUILTY --- and foreign banking organizations --- GUILTY. Popular sentiment is clear these days on this. Politicians as panderers jump all over it and the media as the entertainment medium it really is, including all major networks and the New York Times, go orgasmic with indignation.
Thank God that we have Larry Summers in the Executive Branch. Isn't it a good thing that the country has someone that is so highly regarded for his extensive knowledge that he would be compensated like a mid-level CEO. Look at it the other way people. He left this compensation to work for what, probably $300,000 a year and take all of this flak as well. Do we want someone who has made their mark in the world of influence coming in, or someone like the many Senators and congressmen who get their payoffs when they leave office as lobbyists, trade advisors, corporate schills, and the like. K Street is jammed with these folks. Or do we want someone coming in who is an academic or a politically connected mid level finance executive, both types with no clout in or first hand knowledge of the markets, but attractive because they have not been compensated highly.
The levels of compensation that the entire country is now enraged at have been no secret for years, not to anyone in Congress except maybe the now defeated Virgil Goode, not to any reporter who covered the financial beat for print or television or the web. Most of it has been available in public disclosure. That Larry Summers was compensated highly was due to the world he lived in and the protocols of compensation that ruled prior to our current debacle. That world is changing radically and those compensation levels are coming down across board. He should not in anyway be judged by this and to suggest that he has already been purchased by that compensation is a joke. The money is already in his pocket, and on top of that he's the type of person, from this perspective, who is motivated first by the job and secondarily by the money. The people we should be worried about are members of Congress, Bill Clinton, and reporters seeking bigger followings, which equal bigger bucks, that get their money after the fact.
It seems that we should be grateful that Summers, one of the few broadly focused visionaries in the world of finance and public policy, would take this job. We need him.
No one should be surprised, however, that these compensation numbers are tough for an American public under such economic distress to stomach. What kind of society pays one member $75,000, as an example, for a 40 minute speech followed by 20 minutes of Q&A(or for that matter playing four innings of a baseball game) while families of four or five struggle to get by on half that much in a year with two adults working. There are and have been serious issues, no question about it. These concerns, however, are being exploited by those who have been foot soldiers for the status quo all along. Now these folks who have been elected and expected to lead and those whose words are supposed to seek the facts and the truth with some balanced perspective have simply joined a finger pointing chorus with nothing to add.
Time out John, and get downstairs to the Carolina/Villanova game.
Thank God that we have Larry Summers in the Executive Branch. Isn't it a good thing that the country has someone that is so highly regarded for his extensive knowledge that he would be compensated like a mid-level CEO. Look at it the other way people. He left this compensation to work for what, probably $300,000 a year and take all of this flak as well. Do we want someone who has made their mark in the world of influence coming in, or someone like the many Senators and congressmen who get their payoffs when they leave office as lobbyists, trade advisors, corporate schills, and the like. K Street is jammed with these folks. Or do we want someone coming in who is an academic or a politically connected mid level finance executive, both types with no clout in or first hand knowledge of the markets, but attractive because they have not been compensated highly.
The levels of compensation that the entire country is now enraged at have been no secret for years, not to anyone in Congress except maybe the now defeated Virgil Goode, not to any reporter who covered the financial beat for print or television or the web. Most of it has been available in public disclosure. That Larry Summers was compensated highly was due to the world he lived in and the protocols of compensation that ruled prior to our current debacle. That world is changing radically and those compensation levels are coming down across board. He should not in anyway be judged by this and to suggest that he has already been purchased by that compensation is a joke. The money is already in his pocket, and on top of that he's the type of person, from this perspective, who is motivated first by the job and secondarily by the money. The people we should be worried about are members of Congress, Bill Clinton, and reporters seeking bigger followings, which equal bigger bucks, that get their money after the fact.
It seems that we should be grateful that Summers, one of the few broadly focused visionaries in the world of finance and public policy, would take this job. We need him.
No one should be surprised, however, that these compensation numbers are tough for an American public under such economic distress to stomach. What kind of society pays one member $75,000, as an example, for a 40 minute speech followed by 20 minutes of Q&A(or for that matter playing four innings of a baseball game) while families of four or five struggle to get by on half that much in a year with two adults working. There are and have been serious issues, no question about it. These concerns, however, are being exploited by those who have been foot soldiers for the status quo all along. Now these folks who have been elected and expected to lead and those whose words are supposed to seek the facts and the truth with some balanced perspective have simply joined a finger pointing chorus with nothing to add.
Time out John, and get downstairs to the Carolina/Villanova game.
posted by John Borden at 8:52 PM
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