U.S. Consumption Isn't What it Used to Be

Larry Summers

U.S. trading partners should no longer rely on American consumers to drive global growth, said Lawrence Summers, the departing director of the National Economic Council. “The global economy needs to be rebalanced,” Summers said today in Washington, speaking by video link to an economic development conference in Yalta, Ukraine. “It can’t have the United States consumer being the single engine of global economic growth.” Summers will return to Harvard University, where he has served as president and is a professor on a two-year leave, by the end of the year, the White House said last week. He leaves the Obama administration’s economic team at a time when the U.S. is climbing out of the worst recession since the 1930s. “Growth, while clearly still unsatisfactory, is positive,” Summers said in response to questions. “The process of recovery is under way.” Read more here:

U.S. Consumption Isn't What it Used to Be