The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 9 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Summers: Overwhelming majority of tariff costs will be passed to consumers
“Increases in tariffs of this magnitude, the overwhelming part of them will be passed on to consumers.”
Summers: US made zero tariff reductions during China's 2000 WTO entry
“We had given them MFN status 15 years before. No one. They had MFN status. They had it for 15 years. There was not a single reduction in a barrier to Chinese trade. So the way in which you're describing it is just, bears no resemblance to what it was.”
Summers predicts Fed will resume rate hikes as inflation remains uncontrolled
“I think there's a larger probably risk that we don't really have inflation on a secure path down below three and a half, and that the Fed thinks it's got it under control, and it doesn't. And it's gonna have to go back to, ah, raising, ah, rates.”
Summers: US always enters recession when inflation exceeds 4%, unemployment below 4%
“There's never been a time when inflation was above four and unemployment was below four and the U.S. Economy didn't go into recession before that situation was resolved.”
Summers: Average student GPA at Harvard is now above 3.7
“And that is a embarrassment that the grade point average of the average student at Harvard University is above 3.7.”
Summers: U.S. exports to China grew substantially post-2000 PNTR
“Have you looked at the data on export flows from the United States to China? It actually did happen at a quite substantial rate.”
Larry Summers: Less than 25% of people earning over $10M are audited
“Factually, less than a quarter of people with incomes over ten million dollars are audited.”
Summers: 14% of prime-age American men are currently not working
“We used to be a country, 60 years ago, where four percent of men between 25 and 54 were not working, and now we're a country where 14% are not working at any point in time, and a quarter of them don't work for more than three months Almost within a two year pe…”
Summers: Renovating a 362-foot Charles River bridge took 62 months
“There's a bridge. The bridge goes over the Charles River. It's 362 feet long. It had been around for a hundred years. It needed to be fixed. It did need to be fixed. 62 months. Five years and two months with one lane of traffic closed in order to renovate a 36…”