[deemster]

His most famous controversy is this quote from a leaked memo when he worked at the World Bank.

'the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that'

Also you could consider his polices being a key factor in the financial crisis of 07-08. Maybe crook wasn't the right word but he's certainly an unsavory character. I'm sure I could find more examples.

[milesvp]

Forgive me, but that quote sounds like something any economist would say. Is there more to it than that? was he pushing to dump toxic waste? or was he pushing to align insentives so dumping isn’t a dominant strategy? I’m having a hard time imagining why the topic would come up in a bank.

[deemster]

You can read the whole memo here, it's not long.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summers_memo

Certainly comes off to me as a policy recommendation to dump waste in developing countries but I guess that's in the eye of the beholder.

[gs17]

Reading

> I've always thought that under-populated countries in Africa are vastly UNDER-polluted, their air quality is probably vastly inefficiently low compared to Los Angeles or Mexico City.

makes it feel like he was sincere about it not being a serious policy recommendation. I read it like Jonathan Swift recommending we eat Irish babies.

[cthalupa]

The problem is when you take into account his whole track record there's really not any reason to believe he doesn't sincerely mean that. He was a huge and influential proponent of Gramm–Leach–Bliley, yet after '08 went on the record as saying it was outrageous that the lack of regulation allowed this to happen... regulation that was in place prior to Gramm–Leach–Bliley. When the IMF chief economist warned of the '08 financial crisis years prior to this, Summers called him a luddite.

He also had an... interesting... time as Harvard president, where he set out to belittle Cornell West on a variety of issues, including some that were racially charged - specifically saying that West having a rap album was an embarrassment to Harvard. West decided to return to Princeton after that. Summers then later proposed men as having a higher population of people at the highest aptitudes to be a potential explanation for the lack of women in STEM, despite the science here being quite spotty.

I don't think there's really anything in his history that would garner giving him the benefit of the doubt here.

[milesvp]

Oh, ugly. Reads like some Milton Friedman BS. Hard to say if it was actually sarcastic, because by the time I was in undergrad these were sort of standard arguments used to challenge common thinking. Sarcasm can be very difficult, since it pushes ideas that less sophisticated thinkers can glom onto. Like much of what Friedman spouted was considered batshit insane at the time, and is now touted as ideals to work towards (yay tickle down! no, trust us, you’ll be a millionaire soon!). And to be clear, I consider a big percentage of our current economic problems can be attributed to his lazy thinking.

[ekanes]

> 'the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that'

But that seems true. If you looked at economics only, and not morality, and not the environment, you would dump toxic waste in poor countries. To say we should face that fact doesn't seem to me at least to imply bad intent.

[parineum]

I agree, it could easily be an argument that using only economics to make decisions isn't advisable.

[grrandalf]

s/countries/counties/g

thoughts?

[inemesitaffia]

If he's unsavory, claim unsavory.