Probably Romer had a personality clash with Larry Summers. Remember Neil Rudenstine denied her a job at Harvard back in the 90′s and the talk was that she was too outspoken.

I guess this puts to rest speculation that Summers will be leaving anytime soon.

Access to Obama, and who controls it, was the deciding factor of who won the economic race between a ‘team of rivals’. Political tactics and Obama’s timidity have, once again, conspired to eliminate a dissenting voice.

Obama may feel he has to defer to economic strategists more technically knowledgeable than himself. But he should take a page out of Lyndon Johnson’s book.

He once said:

“Boys, I may not know much, but I know chicken salad from chicken shit.”

People are hungry and desperate. Geithner’s and Summer’s explanations are grandiose and hollow and if Obama continues to listen to what they are serving, the fringe is likely to become then center.

The center of that Summers-Geithner-Obama axis, surely, is Goldman Scratch.

I hope this is truly a sign of her courage and convictions and voice; we will certainly see. A bright spot, maybe

Team Obama will probably not even get the memo. I’m not Romer’s biggest fan but compared to Geithner or Summers she is a voice of relative reason. So long as Obama and Geithner are best buds the economy will continue it’s death spiral and that shows no signs of changing.

Larry thinks women incapable of performing well in math and science. It is quite possible that personality had zero to do with his conduct, but rather it was her gender that threatened him.

If Larry’s intellect and argument are truly so superior, why does he think it necessary to bar the door and prevent a thorough discussion of differing viewpoints? All of which is strictly academic, since the real problem here is that of Obama’s judgment. He decides who gets an audience and who does not.

Good for Romer to leave rather than let Obama waste her time and ruin her reputation.

I was not terribly impressed by Romer. She parroted the economic line of this Administration. If she didn’t agree, she should have said so. I mean the Council of Economic Advisers is not some top secret hush hush organization. I just see Orszag and Romer as the first rats to leave the sinking ship. Why stick around and catch the blame? I still don’t buy the story that Orszag burned out. It’s a pretty straightforward administrative post. Maybe he didn’t like the administrative work or found it insufficiently sexy. But, as Pete Peterson’s man in the White House, the cat food commission had to be near and dear to him, and I just expect more of a reason for him not to see that through.

Romer was the only person on the WH economic team who ever made public statements that sounded like they had some connection to reality. The neolibs reign supreme.

Ding! We have a winner. Larry and Timmy have a sign over the door: “Boys’ Clubhouse, Icky Girls Stay Out!” Romer, like many women especially in academia, forgets that in this world, the game is hardball, and if you don’t have any, you’re out of luck.

LOL — your comment reminded me of Calvin & Hobbes’ club GROSS (Get Rid Of Slimy girlS). You would think by now that such things had gone the way of the dodo, but alas no.

Is it any shock that a woman takes the fall? Obama’s MMS appointee took the fall instead of Salazar, etc.

I voted against Hillary in 2008 to avoid Larry Summers at all costs. My instincts were right, but things didn’t seem to turn out that way.

Do Geithner and Summers have a history of that kind of discrimination or are we talking conjecture?

The president of Harvard University, Lawrence H. Summers, sparked an uproar at an academic conference Friday when he said that innate differences between men and women might be one reason fewer women succeed in science and math careers. Summers also questioned how much of a role discrimination plays in the dearth of female professors in science and engineering

Boston Globe

Larry Summers should be in prison.

Ve vill tolerate NO dissent.

I voted against Hillary in 2008 to avoid Larry Summers at all costs.

I hear ya! I voted against Hillary in 2008 to avoid Rahm Emanuel at all costs.

“too outspoken” = pushy broad

MaryMc had the Summers a to your q. IMO, Geithner is just too stoopid to conceptualize & articulate his inchoate gender biases, but that’s conjecture.

I voted against Hillary to avoid the whole Paul Begala/Lanny Davis wing of the Democratic Party at all costs.

Oh, yeah…I remember that. Had forgotten.

Put Krugman in that spot. His economic sense is spot on and he has a penis, since that seems to be such an important thing to have, though I don’t get how that would help one do math.

Heehee. (Every time I see or hear the word conjecture, I think of Leonard Nemoy narrating the opening of In Search Of…)

I think it is conjecture. Team Obama is essentially Summers and Geithner. Everyone else has been more or less sidelined, regardless of gender. The post says Romer left because of lack of access. It’s not clear how much she really disagreed with the overall thrust of Team Obama. She may have on certain issues or in a limited way, but let’s fact it she wouldn’t have joined this Administration and Obama would not have made her part of it if she had significant disagreements with it.

It gives you one extra digit to count on.

Larry Summers should be in prison.

Larry Summers should be unemployed and forced to jump through the hoops that we little people have to navigate just to survive.

NOT very helpful for base ten mathematics I can’t help but think…. :)

Perhaps because a man can stick a stylus in the end of his penis & use it to write on a slate, thereby increasing his ability to work out math problems.

yep but it is extra fun to “figure” with.

Also the whole “ignore Sheila Bair and, before her, Brooksley Borne: no girlz aloud.”

Owe you a coke!

Comes in handy with base 21 mathematics, though.

ow

Well, heck, I wanted a new keyboard anyway. :)

LOL.

That sounds dangerous!

I’m into the scotch. Will take a raincheck on the coke, depending on the kind of coke. *g*

Signalling is an important aspect of contemporary economic theory. CRomer’s resignation is likely to be evaluated for every bit of information that it might be worth. I wouldn’t expect to see anyone from her left appointed, especially since her keening, pining family wasn’t even mentioned.

She’s a professor at Berkeley – what should she have done? Summers hid her report saying that the stim minimum was 1.2T. She’s not going to say anything for the same reason Dawn Johnsen won’t be saying anything.

Remember when people were talking about Powell and Whitman and Mukasey and how everybody who joined the Bush Administration got their reputation tainted? Same here. I wouldn’t join the administration if I was qualified – they would use me as a way to cover up neocon policies and than make me take the fall the second Glenn Beck said boo.

All right. I promise to behave for the rest of the evening. NOT.

I voted against Hillary in 2008 to avoid Larry Summers at all costs.

I hear ya! I voted against Hillary in 2008 to avoid Rahm Emanuel at all costs.

I voted against Hillary to avoid the whole Paul Begala/Lanny Davis wing of the Democratic Party at all costs.

I voted against Hillary in 2008 to avoid Hillary at all costs. I got her anyway and her Hawkish foreign policy and her Neo-Liberal Rubinesque economics. Oh Well.

Integers might be problematic but fractions made simpler.

Don’t forget Elizabeth Warren. I am having second thoughts about that. Geithner probably has a bunch of moles , along with old Bushies, and Bernankes’ boys. She may be more effective on the outside.

The only thing Obama disagreed with Hillary on was the fact that she wanted to be President – the entire primary was a lie. Its sickening.

Put Krugman in that spot. His economic sense is spot on and he has a penis, since that seems to be such an important thing to have, though I don;t get how that would help one do math.

It helps in understanding the concept of one.

Well they were both dead last and next to dead last on my list. I preferred even old Mike Gravel over either of them.

Jeez, I just voted against the crazy old guy who talked about the fundamentals of the economy being good. But he’s still around too.

You’re talking about the general. Yeah, I voted against that ranting, senile, ill tempered old fart too.

She’s a professor at Berkeley – what should she have done?

Used her position to make her case and critique Summers’. If Obama didn’t like it she could go back to Berkeley. And while $1.2 trillion was larger than Obama’s $787 billion stimulus, that was still a number over two years. That much needed to be spent per year. Also I don’t know the splits she would have been using being tax cuts and spending. These would have had a major impact on the efficacy of the package, just as it did with Obama’s.

Your question has been answered already, but I just wanted to add that a mathematician (Ben Barres) wrote an article for the journal Nature that does a thorough job of debunking the views of Larry Summers, Stephen Pinker, and Peter Lawrence on the innate limitation of women’s intellectual abilities. The reference is Nature, vol. 442, published July 13, 2006, pages 133-136.

As to whether there was gender bias in the treatment Romer received is obviously conjecture, but biases have a way of influencing behavior whether consciously or subconsciously.

OK. Close enough to 50 comments for me to go OT, because this evening I learned the a to an age old q and I am eager to share it.

If a 100′ tree falls on your side lawn, and you are there to hear it, it barely makes a sound.

Literally. I was reading outside, not within sight of the weeping willow in question. I heard a sound like a car driving in my gravel driveway, but no car appeared. Cat looked in the direction of the side lawn, so I got up to check it out. Half of the gigantic tree had come down. There was rot in the middle of the 2 main trunks, it’s been fairly windy this summer, heat, almost no rain for months, but weather was almost perfect today. Yet, down it went. Will cost an arm & a leg to get it cut up and carted away.

O and Hillary were pretty much the same empty (pant)suit running for president. My slight preference was for Hillary, but the difference wasn’t enough to inspire much emotion.

Yep. I always thought she is a wishy washy nothing.

Here’s an interesting tidbit from her wiki

In 2008 Romer was set to join the Harvard faculty of economics, while her husband was offered a position at the university’s Kennedy School of Government. However, the Romers remained at Berkeley after Drew Gilpin Faust, Harvard’s president, vetoed her appointment.[14] Her decision resulted in substantial discussion within the discipline and in the mass media. The motivations for Faust’s decision to block Romer’s appointment remain unclear, though speculation has focused on an opposition among “New Classical” economists to her “New Keynesian” tendencies, or a reluctance to appoint MIT-trained faculty at Harvard.[15

Entropy can be cat paw quiet. The tree was probably let down gently by its own branches.

Yeah, she was my choice too between the two of them. That’s like choosing between drinking gasoline or drinking kerosene though.

Oh, my. There’s no damage to your property, I hope? Falling trees are scary. Since I live in a forested area, death by tree is not unknown.

Those branches that have broken off but held aloft by other branches are called “widow makers”.

I am just relieved that I now know the a to the q about the tree in the forest. It’s been a major concern of mine for ages. *g*

There were some cracks in the trunk, where it was not decayed and that’s prolly the small sound I did hear.

That’s my take, and I haven’t even met either one of them. Eventually, a smart woman gets fed up with pushing against men who ignore them.

What did Cahnnie think of the incident?

The tree was probably let down gently by its own branches

Which should not be confused with how progressives have been let down by Obama and the Democrats.

eCAHN! : o

No damage except for the tree itself and a smallish choke cherry tree that wasn’t thriving anyhow. Those don’t have a long lifespan to begin with and with tent caterpillars loving them and who knows whatever else, I’ve been thinking about replacing it with something more interesting anyhow.

Years ago, on encouragement of many people, I had another gigantic weeping willow, close to the house, removed. Had that one fallen on the house, there would have been major damage. The only other big tree close to the house that would seem to be a threat is an ash with a hollow trunk. But it has been that way for 30 years that I know about, has new growth on the trunk around the hollow part, and is leaning substantially away from the house, so if it goes, it is likely to fall away from the house. Plus it is really essential shade for the whole south side of the house in the summer.

As soon as she scouted out that it wasn’t a critter that she had to protect me from, she lost interest. When I went over to marvel at how big it was, I expected her to follow me and practice her tree climbing skills on the now-horizontal parts, but no dice.

You funny.

Well, we’re in good hands. Summers is an idiot and a misogynist. Geithner isn’t smart, but he’s a crafty crook and he hates Elizabeth Warren because she’s honest and she’s got his number. Obama is the clueless quintessential putz who spends all of his time picking out which white shirt to wear, practicing reading from teleprompters, and working on delivering his lines about laser focus and fierce advocacy with a straight face.

Warren obviously has no chance for the consumer protection job and now it’s time to play the Who’s-Going-To-Jump-Ship-Next game.

Oh, I just got to the tree “incident.” I love weeping willows; always have. Don’t see them down here in the semi-arid land.

Love the part about CAHNstance “looked toward the side yard.” I find out about things that way, too. My doorbell rings in the kitchen; if I’m in the bedroom when it’s run, I don’t hear it.
But I see the three scaredy-cats running to hide and know somebody’s at the door. (The fourth one is friendly; he heads toward the door.*g*)

I have several more gigantic weeping willows that predate my my ownership and several I have planted, which are now quite large. The one that should have gone is completely hollow in the center, but that one is basically in a stream and weeping willow love water, so it hangs on. Don’t know what the typical lifespan of a ww is. I’ll see if I can find out.

Consensus seems to be that ww live about 35-50 years. Since I’ve owned the property for 30 years, it is to be expected that those that were here when we bought it should be tumbling down.

Mature height is variously given, but one said 70′ so perhaps I exaggerated at 100. I’ll measure it tomorrow.

Krugman wants no part of it.

I’m really looking forward to attending a screening of the thrilling new Polanski horror flick, The eCAHNomic Chainsaw Massacre.

According to google, 35-40 years is average. They are soft wood.

Obama is the clueless quintessential putz who spends all of his time picking out which white shirt to wear,

About sums it up.

Luckily I have a tree guy who is a marvel with a chainsaw. He’s a pro (also a rock climber, which helps), 3 size saws, a small wiry guy who can cut up dead trees with a speed that is amazing. I left him a message, and can imagine he’s drooling at the job prospect. Cahnstance will certainly supervise, like she did with the refrigerator repair guy last week. Nothing happens around here anymore without her intimate participation.

I don’t blame him but the rest of us need him.

People have a way of telling you who they are. Summers, in his capacity as PRESIDENT OF HARVARD, opined that women don’t have the aptitude for science and engineering at the “high end.” That is such a fundamentally wrong idea, why would President Obama hire a guy who is just sooo, well, …. WRONG. And why would Christina Romer think her ideas would get a fair hearing?

Best laugh I’ve had all day!

This Obama economic team of Summers, Geithner, Rubin, etc. are all the same economic team that started with Reagan. Clinton kept them. Bush kept them. Now Obama, I assume, is forced to keep them for the simple reason that they are the people really in charge doing the work for the owners of this country like Kissinger and David Rockefeller, and other economic royalists. This is the MIC. They control the banks, the treasury, our military, the intelligence agencies, the media, the oil, and even the illicit drugs.

Well I voted for Hillary so as to get a real center-left liberal that would carry out their campaign promises -instead I got Obama

Latest stat on Obama is that he has forced up the ICE deportation rate – we’re over 400,000 annually – up 20% over the highest level G W Bush was able to achieve. Yet there still seem to be few openings at 7/11 stores.

I like Romer – but she sucked up to the GOP with a poor analysis that gave the GOP what it wanted – a voice saying tax cuts have a larger multiplier (are a more effective stimulus) than direct gov spending on US jobs.

So over a third of the stimulus was wasted on tax cuts because of her.

Summers caves too quickly (he did so on the 1998 401k savings add-on benefit via payroll deduction, and on derivative regulation once he saw that Rubin and Greenspan were opposed to regulation). Geithner’s abilities – economic and administrative – elude my detection – except I do notice what a good bureaucratic in-fighter he is.

Krugman is needed as Fed chair or Treas Sec – but I doubt Obama wants to hear a non-corporate proponent voice.

Change ended when Obama appointed the failure known as Larry Summers to run his economic team.

Wow, entropy.

thanks, Mary.

Great comment

Here is an interesting video interview with Romer from February…..it is fascinating to watch her defend something that she did not believe in…..
http://www.newslook.com/videos/187119-romer-assesses-new-bipartisan-jobs-bill-in-senate
I would love to read the book if there is one forthcoming.

Put Krugman in that spot. His economic sense is spot on and he has a penis, since that seems to be such an important thing to have, though I don’t get how that would help one do math.

I guess they could count to 11 or 21, instead of having to stop @ 10/20.

Hillary as “neo-liberal”???

Not sure how you mean that – for many in the US it just means adding economic concerns to the liberal list of social concerns.

In the EU it means much more – all of which is totally not Hillary who is into regulation – indeed into much more than Obama or anyone else working for Obama. The EU view of neo-liberalism includes THE RULE OF THE MARKET – “Liberating” “free” enterprise or private enterprise from any bonds imposed by the government (the state) no matter how much social damage this causes. Greater openness to international trade and investment, as in NAFTA. Reduce wages by de-unionizing workers and eliminating workers’ rights that had been won over many years of struggle. No more price controls. All in all, total freedom of movement for capital, goods and services – the Reagan approach, including the cutting of the safety net so as to cut the size of government – today’s GOP mantra, including firing gov workers (and military folks not in the line of fire) so they are replaced by private contract labor at twice the cost. Selling the idea that there is no “THE PUBLIC GOOD” or “COMMUNITY” , there is just “individual responsibility.”

None of that is Hillary – so “neo-liberal” seems a mis-placed epithet.

As for Rubin – his contribution begins and ends with selling increasing the taxes on the rich so as to put the country on the path to a balance budget – his anti-regulation is blue dog – not Hillary.

Inside the White House, David Axelrod was among the few representing the so‑called populist side of the argument, and a joshing debate broke out. Axelrod asked Summers, “So, what does your plutocrat constituency make of this, Larry?”

“It’s good to be hearing what Che thinks,” Summers replied.

The above quote confirmed for me what a deluded, petulant little narcissist this man is. CHE??? I bet the little nerd was high-fiving himself for putting a marxist pansy like Axelrod in his place while simultaneously pursuing his life’s work of having taxpayers socialize all downside risk in the financial sector.

Quickly now, we need more money for the Banks. Hey, I can be a economic adviser too.

Obama’s choices from the very beginning revealed who and what were important to him. What I can’t figure out is what the GOP doesn’t like about him?

There was no change. My preference for Hillary was grounded in a suspicion of what Obama promised versus what he had ever done. There was no basis for the adulation and hope.

Ooooh, oooh, oooh, (flailing my arms wildly) I know the answer to this one! HE’S BLACK!

It was consecrated at the “Sit-Down” at Feinstein’s house.
Remember, earlier in the month of August, HRC had dispatched her brother
to meet with Carly Fiorina in Scranton. This demonstrated that she would
make good on the DLC threats to block his winning unless they got to
call the shots. This is what happens when you make a deal with people
who only have THEIR interests at heart