>> And yet: he was only an advocate for doing "the bare minimum"
>> -- and Romer says he was a bully, and got his way.
>
> He claims otherwise.
Of course he claims otherwise :-)
Here's Romer:
http://www.econ.berkeley.edu/~cromer/Stanford,%20Zale%20Lecture.pdf
>> There was a definite split among the economics team about
>> whether we should push for more fiscal stimulus, or switch
>> our focus to the deficit. A number of us tried to make the
>> case that more action was desperately needed and would be
>> effective.
Ok, so that means at least she was calling for it. And someone(s) else "on the team" was worried about the deficit instead. Who could that be?
>> Normally, meetings with the President were very friendly and
>> free-wheeling. He likes to hear both sides of an issue argued
>> passionately. But, about the fourth time we had the same
>> argument over more stimulus in front of him, he had clearly
>> had enough.
Ok, so who was arguing the other side? And why were they arguing in front of Obama about it?
She doesn't say it explicitly, but you've got to believe that Obama went with who he thought was making the better case. Or at least the loudest case. And isn't that what we know about Larry?
She's very diplomatic in this talk, but she starts off with:
>> Indeed, one of the questions that I used to dread the most from
>> friends and acquaintances was, "So, are you having fun?" I
>> usually said something cryptic like "I am sure I will have had
>> fun in retrospect." But the truth is, every inch of me wanted
>> to yell "Are you out of your mind? The economy is in freefall,
>> I haven’t had a full night’s sleep since the President nominated
>> me, and, believe it or not, dealing with Larry Summers is the
>> easy part of my job."
---
The other thing to consider is this: if Summers *had* been for more stimulus back then, don't you think we would have gotten it?
/jordan