Larry Summers: evaluation

Transcript context

…Today it was announced a three-month extension of the debt ceiling. Virtually all economists think there should be no debt ceiling. That said, what’s striking is Trump seems to be doing this with the Democrats. Do you see a shift in regime where Trump will try to govern as an independent and possibly get nothing done? Or do you think there will now be agreements with Democrats in Congress? I’d be surprised if there was much where there could be agreements with Democrats. I think the debt ceiling is, in some ways, more sui generis than it is a template for things to come. I can’t imagine, for example, on tax reform or on healthcare reform, there being some coalitional arrangement of that kind. You’re active on Twitter now. I saw a tweet not long ago. It read something like this. “I’m going to sell all of my Ethereum and double down on VIX . See you in hell.” If you were tweeting back to that person, Ethereum and ICOs seem to be priced very high. VIX seems to be remarkably low for what, at least to observers, feels like a very volatile period in our history, either nationally or globally. How do you think about those asset prices?…

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