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"He may not be President Obama\u2019s top economic adviser anymore, but Larry Summers still has plenty of strong opinions on the economy\u2014and some strong words for the President\u2019s Republican rivals in Congress.\nSpeaking at Fortune\u2019s Brainstorm Tech conference in Aspen, Colo., the former Treasury Secretary and head of the National Economic Council repeated his recent warnings that failing to raise the debt ceiling would be tantamount to \u201Cfinancial Armageddon\u201D and called brinksmanship on the part of Republicans \u201Coutrageous\u201D and \u201Cprofoundly irresponsible.\u201D\n\u201CThe idea that adults who have some agenda, whatever the merits of their agenda, are really prepared to threaten sending the United States into default to pursue their agenda is beyond belief,\u201D said Summers.\nSummers called the new proposals by the bipartisan \u201CGang of Six\u201D senators to resolve the crisis \u201Cencouraging\u201D but said that they need fleshing out and that right now they amount to \u201Cmore a plan to have a plan rather than a plan.\u201D Summers said that, despite all the posturing, the two sides would reach an agreement by the Aug. 2 deadline.\nThe biggest problem the country has right now is not the budget deficit, said Summers, but the \u201Cjobs deficit.\u201D Failing to make progress on the issue could imperil a recovery. \u201CWe\u2019ve been flying out of the recession but we\u2019ve been flying out of it dangerously close to stall speed and that should be our top priority,\u201D he said.\nWe need to embrace the fact that many of our future jobs will be created in service sectors like health care and education rather than manufacturing, said Summers.\nSummers, who recently joined the board of hot mobile payments company Square and signed on as a special adviser to venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz, spoke glowingly about the tech industry.  \u201CI cannot see a sector of the economy that is not being transformed by what information technology is making possible,\u201D he said.\nWhen asked by Aspen Institute president Walter Isaacson whether tech valuations represented a new bubble, Summers was equivocal. \u201CYou\u2019re not going to get me to be dismissive of the idea of a bubble,\u201D said Summers, quipping that the four most dangerous words in markets are: \u201CThis time it\u2019s different.\u201D\nBut Summers said price/earnings valuations for technology companies relative to all industrial companies are at a low point. With the whole world connected and companies earning real money, Summers said, those valuations might well be solid. \u201CIt\u2019s a little facile to assume that just because the numbers are big that it\u2019s a bubble,\u201D he said.\nSummers drew laughs when he was asked whether he was accurately portrayed in a scene from the movie The Social Network, which depicted the creation of Facebook. In the scene, the now famous Winklevoss twins, who had hired fellow Harvard student Mark Zuckerburg to help them create a website, go to then Harvard president Summers to complain that Zuckerburg has stolen their idea\u2014only to be resoundingly put down by Summers.\n\u201CI\u2019ve heard it said that I could be arrogant,&amp;#8221; replied Summers. \u201CIf that\u2019s true, then I certainly was on that occasion.\u201D\n\u201COne of the things that you learn as a college president is that if an undergraduate is wearing a tie and jacket on Thursday at 3 pm, there are two possibilities: One is that they&amp;#8217;re looking for a job and they have an interview; the other is that they&amp;#8217;re an asshole,\u201D said Summers about the visit from the twins. \u201CThis was the latter case. Rarely have I encountered such swagger, and I tried to respond in kind.&amp;#8221;\nRead the full transcript here and watch the video here:\n[cnnmoney-iframe src=http://fora.tv/program_landing_frameview?id=13841&amp;amp;type=clip&amp;amp;autoplay=0]"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://fortune.com/2011/07/20/larry-summers-warns-of-financial-armageddon/?section=magazines_fortune>