Another Economic Adviser For POTUS Barack Obama, Larry Summers, Bolts.

Summers to Step Down After Midterm Elections
By JONATHAN WEISMAN

WASHINGTON—Lawrence Summers, the lightning-rod economist who helped design and secure President Barack Obama's top economic policy priorities, will return to Harvard University at the end of the year, White House officials said Tuesday.

Lawrence Summers at a meeting with China's Communist Party's Central Organization Department Minister Li Yuanchao at the Great Hall of the People on Monday, Sept. 6, 2010, in Beijing, China.

Mr. Summers, director of the National Economic Council, will follow the president's first budget chief and his first Council of Economic Advisers chairman to the exit.

Two people familiar with the matter said the president is considering a senior corporate executive to succeed him, answering criticism that the Obama administration lacks private-sector experience or a sounding board.

The series of departures will leave Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner as the one remaining member of the president's initial economics team.

Mr. Obama, at a town-hall meeting Monday, hinted that such a move might be coming when he talked about how the work of team members has been "tough" and how "they're going to have a whole range of decisions about family that'll factor into this as well."

The president added: "I think Larry Summers and Tim Geithner have done an outstanding job, as have my whole economic team."