Larry Summers and the Secret "End-Game" Memo (collapse of the world economy)

[Jackpine Radical]

85. You're in good company.

I remember the initial Obama euphoria.

I remember rationalizing Rahm's appointment. ("Keep your friends close & your enemies closer.&quot

I remember posting about about Obama's recondite strategies (AKA n-dimensional chess) when he seemed to feint toward the Republicans' positions (to lure them to their doom, I was sure).

No single-payer, no public option--well, obviously he had to get some cooperation with the insurance companies or this whole thing was going nowhere. More n-dimensional chess, maybe. But no. Certainly ACA is better than what went before, but in the implementation the insurance companies pretty much got a direct pipeline to the Treasury and a large captive client pool. The insurance companies came out OK, but the poorest got stuck with plans carrying such high deductibles and co-pays that they are essentially unusable for anything more than catastrophic insurance, which basically means that instead of insuring the patient (who will be bankrupted by the copays and deductibles), mostly works to ensure that the provider will be paid.

And, realistically, there were some things we might have wanted, but that he couldn't get through the Blue Dog-ridden Congress. (So the Administration's response was to back more Blue Dogs in 2010.)

And God, yes, things are better for the LGBT world, we avoided a war (so far) in Syria, and I don't see much more Obama could have done to oil the waters of the Middle East.

Disillusionment is a bitter herb, watered with tears.