How Larry Summers Lost Harvard $1.8 Billion

[bytor2112]

FYI...Larry Summers is President Obama's Chief Economic Advisor...

It happened at least once a year, every year. In a roomful of a dozen Harvard University financial officials, Jack Meyer, the hugely successful head of Harvard’s endowment, and Lawrence Summers, then the school’s president, would face off in a heated debate. The topic: cash and how the university was managing - or mismanaging - its basic operating funds.

[Moksha]

How incompetent of this man to lose money through investing. Good thing he was the only one. Perhaps he also sought to alter Social Security by making it an investment type of thing. What a fiasco that would have been! This adviser probably sought to eliminate stringent controls on banking at the bidding of his master Barack Obama, just so greed would run rampant and the market would be plunged into a tailspin.

[bytor2112]

Should we be allowed to choose to allocate some of OUR social security taxes into the market....ABSOLUTELY. Only a fool would believe otherwise. I manage money for a living and would never have been as fool hardy as the uber arrogant Larry Summers was and is. Why defend him...why not just say....what a bonehead. And why not just say regarding Obama picking him...what a bonehead. (just like most of his picks).

Moksha your problem and the problem with SO many is that you are unwilling or unable to call stupid when it's stupid. Obama has made some stupid picks....you know,........ you can be critical and still support him, BUT, when you rubber stamp everything he does just because....you give up all accountability.

Edited December 2, 2009 by bytor2112

[Just_A_Guy]

IIRC, Limbaugh has a theory about how losing is a badge of honor to some of the liberal intelligentsia.

The really unpardonable thing would have been if Summers had made money. Although, considering he was investing on behalf of academia, he may have gotten a pass.

[jadams_4040]

FYI...Larry Summers is President Obama's Chief Economic Advisor...

And all the people in bushs administration had absolutely no issues at all; correct?

[Just_A_Guy]

From what I can gather, many of the left's gripes about the Bush team was that it consisted of people who had, for the most part, been wildly successful in the private sector.

[bytor2112]

From what I can gather, many of the left's gripes about the Bush team was that it consisted of people who had, for the most part, been wildly successful in the private sector.

Results aren't important.....only intentions.

[joel99]

Out of curiosity, when Kim Clark was Dean of Harvard Business School (now president of BYU-Idaho and member of the Seventy) what role did he play in their endowment investments? IIRC in the book "the Mormon Way of Doing Business" they credit him for dramatically increasing the fund.

On a side note, in Canada we have the Canada Pension Plan which is our version of Social Security. The money is invested among equities, fixed income and other things like real estate. It's seen some pretty good rates of returns plus I don't think it can pillaged like SS can in the US. It would be awesome if something like that existed in the US.