Stiglitz is down, and now he's got me down

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/business/31shelf.html?ref=business Mr. Stiglitz laments that the president failed to make good on such soaring rhetoric. He argues that Mr. Obama has continued for the most part to pursue the failed policies of George W. Bush. This, in the economist’s view, has benefited Wall Street but has done little for ordinary citizens. Mr. Obama surrounded himself with an... [more]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/business/31shelf.html?ref=business Mr. Stiglitz laments that the president failed to make good on such soaring rhetoric. He argues that Mr. Obama has continued for the most part to pursue the failed policies of George W. Bush. This, in the economist’s view, has benefited Wall Street but has done little for ordinary citizens. Mr. Obama surrounded himself with an economic team whose members — Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman; Timothy F. Geithner, the Treasury secretary; and Lawrence H. Summers, the director of the National Economic Council — have been reluctant to revamp the financial system. Mr. Stiglitz says that these are some of the same people whose policies brought us the economic collapse of 2008. That is sure to rankle their supporters, but Mr. Stiglitz, a fine writer, makes a persuasive case. Mr. Stiglitz writes that Mr. Geithner didn’t rein in the financial industry’s risky practices in his previous job, as chairman of the New York Fed. Yes, Mr. Geithner gave speeches warning of potential dangers, but he “was meant to be a regulator, not a preacher,” Mr. Stiglitz says. The author is especially critical of Mr. Summers, his former colleague in the Clinton White House, who helped thwart an attempt to regulate derivatives in the waning days of Mr. Clinton’s second term. The same financial instruments, of course, played a devastating role in the recent crisis. Delays by the administration, Mr. Stiglitz believes, will almost certainly prolong the recession Mr. Stiglitz argues that so-called too-big-to-fail banks like Citigroup are exactly that: too big. He says that they should be broken up [less]