2021: The Year of Politicking Dangerously - Lawrence H. Summers One-On-One with Bob Shrum

Let's Find Common Ground

USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future

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5 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 19 November 2021

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

CPF Director Bob Shrum is joined by Lawrence H. Summers, President Obama's National Economic Council Director, to reflect on the parallels between the current COVID-19 economic fallout and the 2009 recession, and explore solutions for rising inflation.

Featuring:

Bob Shrum - Director, Center for the Political Future; Warschaw Chair in Practical Politics, USC Dornsife
Lawrence H. Summers - Director of the National Economic Council for President Obama; 71st Secretary of the Treasury for President Clinton; Charles W. Eliot University Professor and President Emeritus, Harvard University

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the bully pulpit from the University of Southern California Center for the Political Future.
0:11.7	Our podcast brings together America's top politicians, journalists, academics, and strategists from across the political spectrum for discussions on hot-button issues where we respect
0:22.0	each other and respect the truth. We hope you enjoy these conversations.
0:29.5	Hi, I'm Bob Shrum, director of the Center for the Political Future at USC Dornsife,
0:35.1	and we're going to kick off today's Warshaw conference with a conversation with
0:39.7	Dr. Lawrence H. Summers, the Charles W. Elliott University professor at Harvard, the President
0:45.8	Emeritus of Harvard, one of the world's leaving economists. He was 71st Secretary of the Treasury
0:51.3	during the Clinton administration, where he was the only Treasury
0:54.7	Secretary in the last half century to leave office with a national budget in surplus. He also
1:00.7	served as director of the White House National Economic Council and the Obama administration and the
1:05.8	chief economist of the World Bank. I've known Larry for almost 50 years, and I'm very grateful he agreed to be with us
1:12.9	today. So, Larry, let me start with this question. You were an early critic of President Biden's
1:18.8	COVID-19 economic stimulus package, and I don't think it was an easy thing for you to do,
1:24.3	but you described it as the least responsible macroeconomic policy we've had in the last
1:30.5	40 years, with employment rising and growth again accelerating, but inflation also persistently high.
1:38.0	Do you stand by that judgment? I think it was a real mistake. I think that the impulses were all completely correct,
1:46.0	and there have been some important benefits in terms of higher economic growth
1:52.8	and in terms of lots of people who've been able to come back to work.
1:58.7	But my prediction was that we were just throwing too much money at the economy
2:05.1	given what the economy's capacity was going to be, and that was going to translate into
2:11.5	inflation. And Bob, when I was an undergraduate in college and you were a wise man already involved
2:20.1	extensively in politics, you taught me about the toxic political consequences of inflation.
	...

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