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    A Crisis Wasted: Barack Obama's Defining Decisions
    Unavailable
    A Crisis Wasted: Barack Obama's Defining Decisions
    Unavailable
    A Crisis Wasted: Barack Obama's Defining Decisions
    Audiobook12 hours

    A Crisis Wasted: Barack Obama's Defining Decisions

    Written by Reed Hundt

    Narrated by Jason Culp

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    This audiobook is the compelling story of President Obama’s domestic policy decisions made between September 2008 and his inauguration on January 20, 2009.

    Unlike all other presidents except Abraham Lincoln — who decided not to allow slavery to expand westward before he was sworn in — Barack Obama determined the fate of his presidency before he took office. The results of these fateful decisions led to Donald Trump, the worst person Obama could have imagined, taking his place eight years later.

    This audiobook describes how and why these decisions were made, and discusses whether the outcomes could have been different. Based on dozens of interviews with actors in the Obama transition, as well as the author’s personal observations, this book provides unique commentary on those defining decisions of winter 2008-2009.

    A decade later, the ramifications of the Great Recession and the role of government in addressing the crisis are the reasons behind the ideological battle between progressivism and neoliberalism in the Democratic Party and the continuing struggle for direction in the Republican Party. As many seek the presidency in the November 2020 election, all candidates and of course the eventual winner will face decisions that may be as critical and difficult as those confronted by Barack Obama. This audiobook aims to provide them guidance from history.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateApr 2, 2019
    ISBN9781721358564

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    • 5/5
      Hoo boy. Far be it from the Obama legacy to what we are suffering through now, but this is a necessary recounting from an insider, a former FCC Commissioner and advisor to the Clinton and Obama transition teams. It's basically an indictment of Obama's errors in being too cautious, of taking advice from George W. Bush leftovers Benanke and Paulson and compounding it by adding to his team the Clintonian neoliberals Summers, Geithner, and Emanuel. Of course, hardly any president has come into office at the same exact time as a gigantic financial crash, but the author posits that bolder and more progressive action could have put people back to work much sooner, reformed the homeownership problems, created even better health insurance, and made progress on climate change. Hundt’s proposal to set up three “green banks” for clean energy and winding down coal, efficiency enhancements for buildings, and new electrical transmission networks was shot down. Hundt underemphasizes Eric Holder's (his name does not appear in the book) refusal to jail banksters. There's nary a mention of Yertle McConnell. He brands Democratic Party "identity politics" as a problem, as only a privileged white man can. But his insider view, added to the voice of others, little-known or remembered, who were there (Austan Goolsbee, Sheila Bair, Tom Daschle), reminds us that both Clinton and Obama came into office when the economies were terrible and for the most part improved them, only to benefit their Republican successors.Quotes: “Based on their advanced degrees and prestigious appointments, they believe that what is happening in the economy cannot be happening.”“Obama adopted not only their assumptions about the economy’s behavior, but also their moral code.”“Paulson focused on restoring the financial sector rather than the recovery of the real economy. Geithner cared little about the apparent injustice of helping the rich stay rich. All that mattered was cleaning up the big banks’ balance sheets with government money. The CEOS wouldn’t take any limits on the millions that they were going to get. The people saw no pain, no accountability from them. It just never happened.”“The Clinton circle rejected Krugman, Stiglitz, and Robert Reich for being too critical of Wall Street. Obama would spend his political capital on playing nice with Wall Street.”“Obama’s advisers explicitly said they didn’t care who got the stimulus money as long as it was spent quickly. The planners passed on the chance to refinance student loans and left this market to the private sector.”“Economists predict wrong most everything in the immediate future, and in the long run, they are all dead.”“You think of the Depression as something that is a part of history. You don’t think of it as something that could reoccur.”“Obama ceded the public debate to long time conservative nostrums about big government as the enemy of economic growth.”“Obama nodded to individual responsibility and collective action. For most of his two terms, this brave, inspiring man could not reconcile these antipodal aspects of the country’s culture.”