Larry Summers

The man who won't be Fed chief

Economist Larry Summers has always been a polarizing figure. Fans call him a genius, bold crisis manager and serial achiever: he was Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton, president of Harvard and director of President Obama's National Economic Council.

But Summers, who was the front runner to be chosen by Obama to head the Federal Reserve Board, also came to represent the revolving door between Wall Street and Washington that many people find problematic in the post-Lehman era. His perceived friendliness toward the financial sector and his role as the chief intellectual architect of deregulation under Clinton generated enough opposition among liberal...

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