Summers Withdraws Name to Head Central Bank

Justice, oh sweet justice.  On the Fifth Anniversary of the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, responding to the outrage created by President Barack Obama to name Larry Summers as Fed Bank Chief, Summers does one of the only decent things he’s done in his professional life, “he withdraws” from consideration.

As Obama’s plan to name Summers became just a formality, outrage began building at a fast pace.  First Senator Jon Tester of Montana, a centrist had teamed up with three other Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee to vote against Summers.  

A spokeswoman for Mr. Tester said the lawmaker would oppose Mr. Summers in committee. "Sen. Tester believes we need a consensus-builder to lead the Federal Reserve," a spokeswoman for the lawmaker said Friday. "He's concerned about Mr. Summers's history of helping to deregulate financial markets."

Tester’s reservations were echoed by Democratic Senators Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. 

Summers, one of the chief architects of the financial collapse of 2008, was being fast tracked as Head of the Central Bank by Obama whose fealty to Wall Street Banks is legendary.  Wall Street laundered three-quarters of a billion dollars into the Obama Presidential Campaign and he owes them.  The financial collapse of 2008 was the biggest global financial terrorist attack since the 9-11 collapse of the world trade center.

Jamie Diamond testifies before Senate Banking Committee wearing his Presidential Seal cuff links as if to say, hey bitches my back is covered.

The Federal Reserve Bank headed up by Ben Bernanke, printed up over $43 trillion dollars to bail out banks around the world headed for collapse in 2008.  The Fed has continued to bail out bad bank investments to the tune of $38 billion per month ever since. 

Months ago, Bernanke threatened to take away the punch bowl and stop printing $38 billion per month to keep the party going and Wall Street tanked. 

Dr. Janet Yellen, was the favorite of economists to take over the Federal Reserve Bank.  Her view of the role of the Federal Reserve Bank, was not that of Wall Streets’ Banker, but that of stabilizing the high unemployment rates and opening credit to America’s people and cities.

Dr Yellen has had a long, distinguished career and is highly respected having served in the 1990’s as a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, and chair of the Economic Policy Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. 

As Summers’ nomination was shoved down America’s throat as a sure thing, critics became more vocal.  On Saturday September 14th , the last guest on C-Span’s Washington Journal was George Mason University’s Janine Wedel.  She brought up another Larry Summers episode starting when he was in the Clinton White House and later as President of Harvard.

In 1993, Lawrence Summers began his work at the Treasury Department as undersecretary of the treasury for international affairs. Charged with formulating international economic policy, Summers took over the post at a key time, as Russia was struggling to establish an open system of Western capitalism.

Well, how fortuitous for Summers’ pals.  It seems Summers’ buddies, Harvard Professors, Andrei Shleifer and Jonathan Hay’s efforts to bring about free-market reform in Russia cost the U.S. government over 60 million dollars.   

In 2001, Summers became the 27^th President of Harvard just when Harvard was being sued for $120 million by the U.S. government for Shleifer and Hay’s defrauding the government.

Shleifer and Hay were accused of misrepresenting their purpose in completing the work the government was paying Harvard to do.  They had used personal relationships for private gain.

Not only did Harvard professors working in Russia allegedly take advantage of the very privatization acts they were supposed to be coordinating and advising, but according to Janine Wedel, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh who has published on the subject, the very "collaboration" that Summers praised was actually closer to collusion. "The Harvard group was working with the Chubais group at the expense of the people they were supposed to be helping. They got together and maximized their own opportunities," Wedel said.

Then on September 2^nd, Gregory Palast, Investigative Reporter of The Guardian uncovered secret memos to Summers from Geithner and Rubin about a plot to deregulate World Banking and saddle countries with worthless mortgage backed derivatives, thus bankrupting not only foreign countries but American cities.

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Summer’s withdrawal  from the nomination process is just the beginning of the healing process America must go through.  America needs a steady hand at the tiller and Janet Yellen is that steady hand. 

If you lost money in your retirement fund, if you are a victim of mortgage fraud, if you owe the bank more on your mortgage than the house is worth and cannot refinance, if you have student loans that you can never hope to repay, if you don’t have a job, if you care about your country, call your Senators and let your voice be heard. 

Make sure whoever heads up the Federal Reserve is there for America and the world not Wall Street Banks.  Your life, your country, your family, your community depend on it. 

By:  Patricia Baeten