It can help you to notice you were wrong if you have an institutional reason to do so. Would Larry have come to the same conclusion if he were still President of Harvard, as opposed to being an official in the EFCA-supporting Obama Administration? Perhaps.
My recollection is that at some point during the Clinton Administration, Rep. Defazio, who was the Congressional champion of a financial transactions tax, challenged Summers, who prior to becoming a Clinton Administration official had written an academic paper which argued in favor of a financial transactions tax, to say whether he had changed his view. Larry's answer was, "I read the data differently now." On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 12:13 PM, Gar Lipow <[email protected]> wrote: > While generally true, Summers also possesses that important life skill > referred to as "sometimes noticing when events have proven him wrong". > Summers operated on the assumption that unionization was bad for > capitalism. He has now decided that unionization is good for > capitalism as a counterbalance to certain types of shortsightedness > among capitalists. No moral flexibility required. He has not changed > who he serves, merely what he thinks best serves their interests. > > On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 9:34 AM, Robert Naiman > <[email protected]> wrote: >> As is well known, Mr. Summers possesses that important life skill >> which the John Cusack character in "Grosse Point Blank" referred to as >> "moral flexibility." >> >> >> >> On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 10:35 AM, Louis Proyect <[email protected]> wrote: >>> Robert Naiman wrote: >>>>> >>>>> From the speech at Brookings: >>>> >>>> "If we want to propel this economy forward [and] have a sound >>>> expansion, it has to be an expansion whose benefits are more broadly >>>> shared," he said. That involves tax policy and education, he said, but >>>> also "goes to the question of having a healthy and well-functioning >>>> trade union movement. . . . It is hard to avoid the conclusion that >>>> the way in which our labor laws have functioned, and have been >>>> enforced and been acted on over many years, have not been constructive >>>> from the point of view of having a healthy trade union movement. And >>>> an attempt to redress that balance seems to me something that is >>>> appropriate at such a time." >>>> >>>> Who knew? >>> >>> Actually, the scumbags that put a full page ad in the NY Times last week >>> opposing EFCA had a Larry Summers quote at the top: >>> >>> "Another cause of long-term unemployment is unionization. High union wages >>> that exceed the competitive market rate are likely to cause job losses in >>> the unionized sector of the economy. Also, those who lose high-wage union >>> jobs are often reluctant to accept alternative low-wage employment." >>> >>> http://fmpolitics.blogspot.com/2009/01/summers-on-big-labor.html >>> _______________________________________________ >>> pen-l mailing list >>> [email protected] >>> https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> Robert Naiman >> Just Foreign Policy >> www.justforeignpolicy.org >> [email protected] >> _______________________________________________ >> pen-l mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l >> > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > -- Robert Naiman Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org [email protected] _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
