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Lawrence H. Summers

@LHSummers

18 Oct

@FareedZakaria

Told @FareedZakaria on GPS @CNN, America’s failure on COVID-19 is almost unimaginable. Heck, if the U.S. had handled the pandemic as well as Pakistan, we would have saved in neighborhood of $10 trillion.

The costs of an expanded testing system are trivial compared to the costs of tens of thousands of early deaths. Expanding testing should be a matter of utmost urgency.

Interest rates are essentially zero, telling us that the funds are available and won’t crowd out anything important. Instead it will push economy forward. All the dangers are on spending too little, not too much.

Read 4 tweets

Lawrence H. Summers

@LHSummers

12 Oct

@Cutler_econ

I have a Viewpoint out in JAMA with my colleague @Cutler_econ – The COVID-19 Pandemic and the $16 Trillion Virus. It is particularly relevant today ja.ma/3diC0U9
1/13

We estimate the cost of the COVID virus for the US. Bottom line cost: $16 trillion. This is $200,000 per family or 90% of a year’s GDP.
2/13

Some other metrics: this is 4x the output loss of the Great Recession, 2x the cost of all wars since 9/11, and roughly the cost of climate change in the next 50 years. Let me explain the estimates.
3/13

Read 13 tweets

Lawrence H. Summers

@LHSummers

12 Oct

@fordschool

Watch here my debate ⁦@fordschool⁩ with @MayaMacGuineas on whether the federal deficit is unsustainable. fordschool.umich.edu/events/2020/fe…

We need a different paradigm while thinking about the deficit. Of course we need more stimulus. The difficult question is: What do we need in the future?

A move to austerity as soon as possible is dangerous & misguided. Fails to appreciate the big structural changes in our economy, which is the emergence of a massive excess of private savings over private investments at a reasonable interest rate. What I call secular stagnation.

Read 6 tweets

Lawrence H. Summers

@LHSummers

11 Oct

@NickKristof

1/ Very important column by @NickKristof in @nytopinion this weekend on the gravity of the tax compliance crisis facing this country today.

nytimes.com/2020/10/10/opi…

@NatashaRSarin

2/ Whatever you think about tax collection and the merits of investment in IRS that @NatashaRSarin and I have discussed:

nber.org/papers/w27571

It is indefensible that you are more likely to get audited if you live in the Mississippi Delta than on Park Avenue

3/ And it’s outrageous the IRS is so underfunded it has been unable to pick up the phone when taxpayers call for help

And unacceptable that it does not have agents to work the cases of a few hundred high-income individuals whose failure to even file taxes cost the IRS billions

Read 4 tweets

Lawrence H. Summers

@LHSummers

25 Jun

@EconClubNY

Glenn Hubbard asked me today at a talk with the @EconClubNY, "How do you expect higher-ed to be evolving both in terms of delivery and addressing opportunity?" I told him I think the two things go together.

@Harvard

I am very proud of the fact that I put in place a set of policies during my time as President of @Harvard that was widely emulated, that basically said if your family had an income below $60,000, you didn’t have to pay a cent to come to @Harvard.

This changed the composition of student body, the applicant pool and influenced what other universities did. It was a really great thing.

Read 14 tweets

Lawrence H. Summers

@LHSummers

27 Apr

@HarvardHBS

My conversation with @HarvardHBS Prof. Robin Greenwood on public health, economic policy, politics, financial markets and what the crisis means to higher education. Watch here: hbs.edu/mba/blog/post/…

@Harvard

These events are not a huge surprise. As President of @Harvard, I said global health should be a priority b/ two of most important things to happen in 21st century were the rise of developing world & the century of biology. Those two things come together @ global health issues.

It’s mostly not our policy that is reducing the performance of the economy, it’s the disease itself. You can open the economy all you want but not many people are going go shopping when they think 10 percent of their neighbors have a potentially fatal, contagious disease.

Read 12 tweets

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