Speculative commentary on Obama stimulus and Hillary Clinton appointment

Howard Stieglitz and Paul Krugman, two superb economists and Nobel Memorial Laureates met with Obama and urged a 1.5 trillion dollar infusion, which would have been almost exactly right. But they had both supported Hillary Clinton in the primaries and so he went with his own advisor, Larry Summers who had a record of major mistakes when working for Bill, not to mention as President of Harvard, so Obama proposed an 800 billion infusion and then made the classic “Barry” mistake by giving 400 billion of it to small business. This was well known to have no positive effect whatsoever. Businesses do not invest during a recession, they wait for demand to return. They are happy to get the money, which they promptly put away in savings where it has no effect. In short, Obama’s stimulus was % the size it needed to be. It did reverse the slide downwards leading to years of positive growth but the effect was too weak when needed most and chants of “Yes we can” turned, in effect, to chants of “Yes we can but it sure is gong to take a long time” and the Tea Party swept aside many of his powers in 2010. Barack was known as “Barry” growing up because his Kenyan father Barack was a “rolling stone that gathered no moss” and his son always had to navigate two worlds without the support of his father. He had all the benefits of outbreeding—tall, good looking and very bright—and his ability to navigate the two worlds propelled him upwards—into Harvard Law School, then first “black” Law Review editor, then Illinois legislator—then his memorable “not Red States nor Blue States but United States” speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention. But always with the flaw of compromising where he should not. The second major mistake he made right away was to appoint Hillary to be Secretary of State, making peace with his defeated opponent, a nice gesture perhaps but unheard of in US history. Why elevate your opponent? Why indeed. She will be in a lead position to replace you 8 years later but will in fact usher in something far worse. “Crooked” Hillary indeed—not because of some foolishness over e-mails but because she was a life-long enabler of a thoroughly dishonest husband, as when she HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_029449