Not sure where you are - my "mainstream" gal got defeated in June 2008, conceded within days, gave a nice kumbay speech at the convention, accepted that traditional Russian exile position to keep her from being a threat, and was off to foreign climes in Jan 2009, and after 4 years abroad was out of the government, and has spent the last 2 years being blamed for all the domestic policies of the guy who defeated her along with the foreign policies of his predecessor. Bring it on, I'm used to this wise-ass shit detached from reality. Go ahead, toss in a few "elite" and "establishment" and "neoliberal" bits so I feel at home.

Even there, the go-it-slow and why-can't-along reach-across-the-aisles president did put together a bailout that threw money at Wall Street but snuck in a Detroit bailout anyway. Yes, I read Friedman Krugman (wrong NYTimes columnist), knew it wasn't enough *before it happened/as it was debated*, knew the Republicans were weighing it down in unhelpful tax rebates rather than stimulus, so yes, the recovery's taken 7 long years but has happened, which is a bit more than we could have expected from the Republicans who crashed it. And yes, the insult to injury of besides banks not spending the free money given + loaned to them, also went and absconded with people's houses through illegal mortgage foreclosures and otherwise predatory behavior.

(on a personal level, my investment bank's changed names 3 times over this period, so I get reminded of the consolidation & too-big-to-fail with every statement)

(There was also the decision to kind of cover up the rebates as less tax witholding, so people wouldn't even realize they had them. Why? Good policy or bad? Certainly lowered the credit the administration received)

I don't think any of this has to do with "economics" per se, and everything about who took a gun or Uzi to a knife fight and has the stomach in the belly or contra, pure chutzpah to make things a total mess and then demand all sorts of considerations and payouts as recompense for cooperating - kind of like asking the firemen rescuing your burning house for tithes and to take off their shoes before entering your house. And Regulation - that dirty word that had everything (IMHO) to do with why the industry felt much more entitled and enabled when the gang-that-couldn't-shoot-straight came into power Jan 2001.

And yes, I cheered Alan Grayson and Elizabeth Warren when they tore regulators new assholes in hearings, but it's not near enough or even useful compared to stopping the theft - but hey, they're in the opposition minority. Funny - it's kind of like Iraq inspections - at least we know the magnitude of the crime vs. a coverup, but it didn't stop the crime. Should Hillary have given Goldman Sachs a harsher dressing down during her speech? I suppose, just like John Dillinger's mother should have scolded him for all those murders. Not quite useful, but at least we would have known where Ma stood, right?

Anyway, we did all this during the primaries and general elections. Why don't you talk some interesting new economics ideas and stop with the retreading the election time bullshit.

Yes, I get the issue with austerity, which in the case of Greece is a problem because they're so fucking irresponsible that do this or that, it's still a road to hell, whereas pumping money into Ireland, Portugal, Spain has the likelihood of sane behavior and faster recovery among adults - they had sane economics before but got caught in something bigger, and the feel-good tactic of punishing sin is counterproductive. Why did we push for so much budget austerity vs. say a jobs program for long-suffering blacks, or combined into a larger not-just-an-ethnic-favoritism approach? well, for one reason, Obama likely couldn't get away with it anyway, but maybe he could have - penguins did fly in one BBC report, ending up in Brazil methinks. Even with a House stacked against him, he could have brought the issue to the American people who would have demanded his birth certificate rallied behind him and it would have been okay. Anyway, go to those who really supported him and the Hope & Change thing if you want some answers - I'm not his primary fan club, even though I think he's done reasonably well under the circumstances, given his basic nature at bargaining/not bargaining.

I suppose the 1 economic policy question from the past is whether you think Glass-Steagall was the only thing required to stop the crash all by its lonesome and whether it is appropriate in toto or which parts for the way banking and insurance and investment and various other ways of shuffling around money & assets works in 2016.

But more interested in hearing about MMT and all its wonders, since it was my dismissal of *that* you were criticizing (and *no*, I'm not a deficit scold, though I think in times of plenty, e.g. the later Clinton years, paying down the debt *may be* helpful if aligned properly with other needs and policies).