So There's At Least Something On The Site Today

I'm busy traveling. So, here's something Mike Gerber and I wrote a while back. Larry Summers was then Secretary of the Treasury; now he's the president of Harvard.

FROM THE DESK OF LARRY SUMMERS

by Michael Gerber and Jonathan Schwarz
The New Yorker
July 12, 1999

"Just between you and me, shouldn't the World Bank be encouraging MORE migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs [Less Developed Countries]?... A given amount of health-impairing pollution should be done in the country with the lowest cost... 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."

-- December, 1991 memo from Larry Summers, then chief economist for the World Bank, as reported in the New York Times

TO: All
FROM: Larry Summers, Secretary of the Treasury
DATE: July 31, 1999

Thanks for your warm welcome last Friday. I must admit that I hate karaoke, but Bob Rubin's version of "Stone Free" is something I'll remember for a long time. ; )

To start the flow, here's a brainstorm I had this morning: just between you and me, shouldn't Treasury be encouraging pharmaceutical companies to test their RISKIEST new products on the people of the Third World? Sure, the domestic prison population is a good half step, especially when the subjects can't read well enough to understand the release form. But even some crank-head who killed his girlfriend over a lottery ticket is going to get out one day, and have some job dealing fro-yo at the mall. Then he'll be pulling down the American minimum wage, money that a Hmong tribesman wouldn't make if he lived to be a thousand. So it would be much more economically efficient to dose Zapatistas and Kashmiri yak herders with Merck's newest anti- baldness/impotence/prostate enlargement cream. Squirt it from cropdusters, or just dump it in the water supply. Frankly, these people's lives are so awful that even horrible side effects would be an improvement. We should face up to that.

TO: All
FROM: Larry Summers
DATE: January 14, 2000

Just between you and me, wouldn't it make more economic sense if companies doing business in Less Developed Countries could BUY their workers' rights? Like, the right to strike? Or to criticize the company? Or to go to the bathroom? Right now these people make so little money that they (or their parents) would be glad to accept a small lump sum, in return for which they would give up their right not to be chained to the machinery. They wouldn't even miss it... The companies would get an orderly workforce legally forbidden from doing anything BUT work, and their employees would get perhaps US$5.00. Both sides benefit! This is what free trade is all about, and we should face up to that!

TO: All
FROM: Larry
DATE: May 20, 2000

Just between you and me, there's only one way we're ever going to colonize the moon: Third World labor. Lots of it. And let's face it, there's going to be an INCREDIBLE rate of mortality, especially if we use that cheap, shoddy material for the spacesuits (see my previous memo, "Cutting Corners in Outer Space"). On the good side, life expectancy in the LDCs is already pitifully low, particularly now that enormous loads of toxic waste have been dumped there. "Listen, Champ, you're going to be dying soon anyway, so why not do it on the moon, with some money in your pocket!" We'd get so many applicants that we'd have to run some kind of lottery, possibly on the Internet. (Al Gore loves this angle.)

Also, I know you just started facing up to this Moon idea, but I just had a brainstorm about what to do with all those extra children in Ireland.