> What I guess I'm not clear on is whether
>everyone on this list considers this the transparent excuse of a man who
>got caught saying something outrageous on the record, or whether some
>allow that Lant Prichett and he might really have thought of this along
>the lines of Swift's _A Modest Proposal_.
From my brief exposure to Summers on A15, I'd say it was "irony" used to cloak his & Pritchett's real sentiments. (Pritchett, as LBO reported recently, was elated to see Stiglitz go.) After all, in the words of a semi-famous ironist, "irony makes everything ok."
Doug