After Larry Summers' Recent 'New Normal' Speech Any Second Thoughts in Torpedoing His Nomination?

     Liberals killed his nomination-it was so bad that even as chronic an Obamabot as I myself, was against his nomination despite how badly the Administration wanted him. 

     http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/07/clinton-admits-he-was-wrong-on.html

     Paul Krugman, while a close friend and colleague of Summers said baldly at the time that what we needed for the next Chairman was the most qualified choice and that means the most dovish-and that, he argued, clearly was Janet Yellen. This was basically my reasoning too. 

     " "So what we have here are two highly qualified candidates, head and shoulders above anyone else I’ve heard mentioned and inconceivably better than the men who might have been in contention if that guy who ran with Paul Ryan had won. But if the final choice isn’t Janet Yellen, I think the president is going to have to offer a very good explanation of why not, or face a lot of grief from people who want to think the best of his administration."

     http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/07/why-everyone-doesnt-love-larry-for-fed.html#comment-form

     I admit, that I too got put off looking back on all the shots he'd taken at regulation over the years and then there was the worry that he's a closet hard money man like his mentor, Bob Rubin. However, he sounds much better now. He argues that we may be in for a long term Great Stagnation comprised of low interest rates and low inflation. 

     "His pessimism going forward draws on the work of his uncle the Nobel-prize winning economist Paul Samuelson. Summers recognizes that the natural rate of interest is roughly equal to population growth. The US labor market grew on average by about 2% annually between 1960 and 1985. It is expected to slow to 0.2% over the next decade."

    Read more at http://pragcap.com/summers-expects-a-long-winter#TvT5ewhXctADIq8Q.99

    To digress, I wonder another thing that will hurt for employment is the Internet and data revolution which have greatly contracted teh demand for many types of skilled 'white collar' labor-I should know, I came out of college just at the time this was happening-2001, one of the worst times to get out of school. If I had gotten out 10 years ago or even 5 years ago the world would have been my oyster. 

    http://www.amazon.com/Race-Against-Machine-Accelerating-Productivity-ebook/dp/B005WTR4ZI/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1384995713&sr=1-2&keywords=Brynjolfsson%2C+Erik%2C+McAfee%2C+Andrew

    Though these same authors if they paint a pessimistic picture of technology displacement they are optimists that we finally do resolve very well though it may take awhile. 

    http://www.amazon.com/Second-Machine-Age-Prosperity-Technologies-ebook/dp/B00D97HPQI/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1384995713&sr=1-1&keywords=Brynjolfsson%2C+Erik%2C+McAfee%2C+Andrew

   The very idea of technology displacement is held to be impossible by mainstream Neoclassical econ. 

   Back to Summers:

   A few months ago, many observers argued that Yellen was more dovish than Summers. However, Summers’ argument here that the US (and other high income economies) may need negative interest rates for much longer catapults him into a super dovish position. He says, “We may well need in the years ahead to think about how to manage an economy where the zero nominal interest rate is a chronic and systemic inhibitor of economic activity…”

   "Summers suggests that the normal condition of the high income countries is one of inadequate demand, from which it can only achieve some semblance of full employment when being goosed by bubbles. This is among the best that neo-liberalism has to offer. However, it stops just where it needs to begin, but that requires an ideologically difficult question: what is the source of chronic shortage of aggregate demand."

   "So Summers sounds good-even better now that I realize he is Samuleson's grandson. If this is the best Neoliberalism has to offer, it's interesting that even supposedly 'Keynesian' economists like Noah Smith seem to think it's the answer for Japan."

    http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2013/11/new-foreign-affairs-article-will-japan.html

     For more on Neoliberalism see here:

     http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/09/phillip-mirowski-on-how-neoclassical.html

     Sumner is certainly a very great NLer-he preaches to us just the very same things that got us into this mess-the denial of fiscal policy for anything but the supply side-which means low taxes for the rich, much less regulation, deep government spending cuts and higher taxes for those who aren't rich. 

     P.S. I still think Yellen is the best choice-but Summers doesn't sound so bad now: Krugman though always said that Summers would be highly qualified, but that he still was the second most qualified candidate behind Yellen. I beginning to believe Krugman was right about Summers too.