Earlier today, on Hedgeye's morning conference call, Hedgeye CEO Keith McCullough was asked the following question by a Hedgeye client.
Q. In the past few days you have remarked that Larry Summers would be unfit for the role of Fed Chairman. Can you explain exactly what the appointment of Larry Summers would mean to the markets?
KM: The problem with Larry Summers is number one, he’s not a risk manager. He blew up the Harvard endowment. Royally.
Number two, he’s equally, if not more dogmatic than Ben Bernanke. Number three, getting more of a personality, or more personal opinion into all this. That is is one of the big issues I obviously have with Bernanke and the Fed overall. It’s an unelected, unaccountable post.
If you have ever had a meeting, or done a breakout session with Larry Summers, and you have any knowledge whatsoever on the subject matter, you’re going to see pretty plainly that he is one of the more condescending guys out there in terms of talking down at people. When somebody does that, typically you would expect them to be like Tiger Woods used to be, somebody who is literally perfect, someone with a perfect track record.
But this guy has been so wrong, for so long, but rarely, if ever in doubt. That’s the kind of thing that scares the hell out of me. He really is scary.
And I think if you were to fast-forward six to twelve months from now, and this guy is running the show, and the dollar is going down every day, that’s your bear case. He would be the biggest threat to the US currency since, well since Ben Bernanke.
