Economics: Private Markets Make up the Core of Obamanomics

What is Obamanomics?

When I asked participants and observers that question, they all started with the same premise: The administration didn't have time for philosophy. It had to put out fires - and fast. But faced with the greatest economic crisis in generations, a crisis that spread across many sectors, their response, in retrospect, was remarkably consistent.

Isolate the eight key economic decisions of the Obama presidency: The intervention in the financial sector, the intervention in the auto sector, the intervention in the housing sector, the stimulus package, the health-care bill, financial regulation, and the tax deal. The financial and auto interventions, it should be noted, were begun under George W. Bush but carried out and expanded under Obama.

In each case, the Obama administration sought to support or improve private markets. It refused to leave the market to sort itself out, as some on the right would have preferred, and resisted entreaties to take it over, as some on the left advocated.

For more, see Private Markets Make up the Core of Obamanomics by Ezra Klein, December 30, 2010 at The Washington Post.