1991
While serving as the chief economist of the mighty globe-dominating World Bank, Summers sent what could arguably be called the most heartless memo in history.
The now infamous "toxic memo" Summers sent to the World Bank, where he made the case that we should be migrating pollution and toxic waste to poor countries: "I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that."
1999
Summers was a major force for repealing Glass-Steagall, which stripped banking regulations and made the subprime mortgage collapse possible.
The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (aka the Financial Services Modernization Act) basically erased the distinctions between investment banks and commercial banks, allowing commercial banks to engage in risky investments like mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations.
He infamously trumped up the new legislation by saying: "Today, Congress voted to update the rules that have governed financial services since the Great Depression and replace them with a system for the 21st century. This historic legislation will better enable American companies to compete in the new economy."
2004
Summers lost a billion dollars of Harvard's money by betting on interest rates. And boy, was it a bad bet.
While he was the university's president, he figured he'd engage in some esoteric interest rate swaps. In layman's terms, Summers bet on interest rates being higher than they were forecasted to be in the early 2000s, when he made the bet.
All told, he pulled in a grand total of $5.2 million from hedge fund D.E. Shaw alone and another $2.7 million from speeches given to J.P Morgan, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Lehman Brothers. Goldman Sachs paid him $135,000 for a single appearance.
So a guy who made millions from companies responsible for crashing our economy gets a cushy job as one of the central economic advisors to President Obama...
2010
In the 2010 documentary Inside Job, Summers is presented as one of the key figures behind the late-2000s financial crisis. Charles Ferguson points out the economist's role in what he characterizes as the deregulation of many domains of the financial sector.
