On July 22, 2022 the NIB Coalition sponsored a Zoom Town Hall, “It’s the ‘Productive’ Economy, Stupid.” Included in the one hour and fifty-minute discussion, Professor Robert Hockett, Edward Cornell Professor of Law and Finance, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, unleashed against the former treasurer secretary Larry Summers. Summers has recently been all over the news spouting his solution to fighting inflation.  Here are some quotes from a recent Hockett article published in The Nation magazine challenging Summers’ theory.

“Today, with inflation clearly a major factor both in our domestic politics and in many other nations, the discussion has moved on to how best to solve the inflation problem. Former treasury secretary Lawrence Summers recently suggested that the solution—at least here in the United States—is to reverse the present rare moment of job and wage gains (the latter still well behind inflation) and increase the joblessness rate.

‘“We need five years of unemployment above 5 percent to contain inflation—in other words, we need two years of 7.5 percent unemployment or five years of 6 percent unemployment or one year of 10 percent unemployment,’ Bloomberg reported Summers as saying in a June speech in London.”

“Summers’s view—which, alas, is very much in keeping with contemporary orthodoxy—is rooted in the curious notion that if you make enough people poor by taking away their jobs, they won’t be able to buy goods or services, which will result in lower demand and, eventually, lower prices. But a policy of killing demand by taking jobs from 18 million Americans will leave an awful lot of collateral damage.”

“Before even considering such “kill the patient” remedies, we ought to ask whether better-targeted, non-carpet-bombing-style tactics are available.”

As an alternative to Summers’ insanity, Hockett proposes that we increase production by enacting HR3339 for a $5 Trillion National Infrastructure Bank which would create 25 million new high-paying jobs and create massive growth. Watch his provocative opening remarks and spread the word. Stopping Larry Summers is of utmost priority.

(Click here for video of Prof. Hockett's statement)

Read article here:

https://www.thenation.com/article/economy/inflation-reindustrialization-manufacturing