Meanwhile, post the SNL skit here is yet another sign of how people are feeling: freshjive.com
I'm pretty sure the holistic, all-in political and economic calculation in the White House was 1. Just get through it (the crisis). 2. Don't get out too far in front of it, lest it becomes "your crisis." 3. Cede a bunch of the policy to Congress, like the StimPak, so that political risk is shared. 4. Pray. Pray that the crisis is alleviated enough by the next election cycle to keeping building on the new DEM majority.
imo they calculated badly and there are many reason but for me the biggest one is that all the econ people advising the President come from the same infinite debt/goose the system/it takes care of itself paradigm.
The only way to have effectively dealt with this burst credit bubble would have been to take the most, not the least, political risk. Stuff like ending the wars immediately, smashing the defense budget down to size, putting the military to work on energy transition by building out natural gas infra but also drilling offshore in the US to create the dollars to build utility grade solar and trains. The whole StimPak would have had to be more like a Chinese StimPak: rail, rail, and more rail. You know, the productive energy-capture infra that would give impoverished Americans a chance to lower their energy costs.
Instead, the O Team invested in cars, banks, and highways, and houses.
Genius.:-)
Anyway, my view is that the mess is so big that's why it took 30 years to build. So the O Team are more bag-holders than progenitors.
At the end of the day, the Statesman makes the painful decision that the Politician is constitutionally unable to confront. And so it goes.
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