I enjoy having somebody in the conversation who knows some economics and some recent history. Many times, I’ve been in a conversation where I’m hammering the idiotic decision to repeal Glass-Steagall and people are really rolling with me until I let it slip that Bill Clinton signed the stupid bill.

I do think it’s probable that deregulation was a wave on the tsunami level at the time and Clinton’s veto might have been overridden but so what? If he had cast a veto and then it became law anyway he would have wound up looking a lot better than he looks now.

As I’ve written many times, neither McCain nor Obama knew beans about macroeconomics and neither was prepared to run on macro issues. They had to respond to not just a national emergency but a threat to the world economy.

My own view at the time from the cheap seats was that we had a crisis of our own creation, that if we could right our national ship that would be the best thing for the European banks. They, too, were too deep in the casino but there was a chance that without a cascade coming from the nation with the reserve currency they could pull back from the edge….if they could see the edge.

I was really pleased that Ben Bernanke was in charge. If I could pick, I would pick somebody with his resume — an academic economist with a middle class background rather than a bankster from a family of banksters. Bernanke was a really smart guy and not conflicted and that’s as good as it gets.

Now, what if I were Bernanke?

I saw a crisis where the textbook solution would be found in fiscal policy, but Congress was not interested in moving quickly and decisively and Bush 43 was not pushing for a fiscal solution. Therefore, if the US economy were to be pulled from the brink it would have to be done with monetary policy — and even folks like myself who never studied macro beyond the junior year knew that was not the proper tool for the job.

I was all WTF? I did not understand the theory of quantitative easing and I’m not sure I do now. I do believe we were circling the drain and if we went down we would pull a lot of other nations down with us and that’s how Great Depression II happens.

After GDII was avoided, I did what I could to influence the Obama administration to appoint Janet Yellen rather than Larry Summers. I get the vibe you would argue there was no difference between those two and I think that’s wrong but I’m not trying to play straw man so I’ll shut up about it.

The political reality was it would be Summers or Yellen.

Our country is right now in the sorry situation that the solutions to our economic problems have no political legs.

We need a tax increase but the zeitgeist is we need to cut taxes again and again.

We need more regulations but the zeitgeist is we need to repeal the ones we have.

I don’t know how to argue for higher taxes and more bank regs in our current situation.