Summers' memo

[Ken Hanly]

What are their real sentiments that are being "cloaked"?If they believe in
the principles that are expressed ironically in the memo this is hardly
cloaking. Swift was not throwing a cloak over his views that Irish infants
could be a tradeable commodity in his Modest Proposal surely.
How on earth does irony make everything OK?

  Cheers, Ken Hanly

Doug Henwood wrote:


> Michael Pollak wrote:
>
> >  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