Quote of the day, on Larry Summers and economists

Summers is unquestionably brilliant, as all who have dealt with him, including myself, quickly realize. And yet rarely has one individual embodied so much of what is wrong with economics, with academe, and indeed with the American economy. For the past two years, I have immersed myself in those worlds in order to make a film, Inside Job, that takes a sweeping look at the financial crisis. And I found Summers everywhere I turned.

Oooooh .... "burn," as my students say :)

The author, Charles Ferguson (director of the new documentary Inside Job and the 2007 documentary No End in Sight: The American Occupation of Iraq) argues that Summers is not the only one, but perhaps the most important among those at an unholy intersection:

Summers's career is the result of an extraordinary and underappreciated scandal in American society: the convergence of academic economics, Wall Street, and political power.

He makes it sound almost as if these modern day academic economists peddling to political and financial powers are the very "economic planners" that those in favor of deregulation and free markets critique.  Another instance of hating somebody so much because of the intense love within? muahahaha

Now, for a mighty blow to the profession:

Over the past 30 years, the economics profession—in economics departments, and in business, public policy, and law schools—has become so compromised by conflicts of interest that it now functions almost as a support group for financial services and other industries whose profits depend heavily on government policy. The route to the 2008 financial crisis, and the economic problems that still plague us, runs straight through the economics discipline. And it's due not just to ideology; it's also about straightforward, old-fashioned money.

All right!  Am enjoying this intellectual assault. I am sure there will be plenty of responses at different places.  All in time for the Prize in memory of Nobel. 

Whoever said that intellectual life is a bore.  When it comes to ideas, there is always a battle or two beginning. 

The only problem: these are not mere intellectual discourses in a seminar room, but have profound and mostly disastrous results as policies.