Eliot and Eric welcome Larry Summers, former President of Harvard University and former Secretary of Treasury in the Clinton Administration. They discuss why his prescient advice about the dangers of inflation were ignored by the Biden Administration and whether or not Democrats have learned the lesson that inflation affects all Americans with corrosive political effects. They also touch on the prospects for the US economy given Trump’s misguided and haphazard policies as well as the role they have played in the decline of the stock market and dollar and increase in bond yields and touch on the role that the loss of the US reputation for being a rule of law nation might have on long run prospects for the economy. They also examine his role as President of Harvard, his determination to participate in ROTC commissioning ceremonies, the danger of identity concerns devolving into a “victimization Olympics,” his concerns about the decline of universities as an ivory tower where the search for truth goes on as well as the excesses of anti-Semitism that Harvard among other universities have suffered as well as more general reflections on the role of universities on the nation’s public life.

Larry Summers on Conversations with Bill Kristol:

Larry Summers

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

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Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast cosponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.