A Crisis Wasted
Barack Obama's Defining Decisions
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Narrated by:
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Jason Culp
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By:
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Reed Hundt
About this listen
This book is the compelling story of President Obama’s domestic policy decisions made between September 2008 and his inauguration on January 20, 2009.
Unlike all other presidents except Abraham Lincoln - who decided not to allow slavery to expand westward before he was sworn in - Barack Obama determined the fate of his presidency before he took office. The results of these fateful decisions led to Donald Trump, the worst person Obama could have imagined, taking his place eight years later.
This book describes how and why these decisions were made, and discusses whether the outcomes could have been different. Based on dozens of interviews with actors in the Obama transition, as well as the author’s personal observations, this book provides unique commentary on those defining decisions of winter 2008-2009.
A decade later, the ramifications of the Great Recession and the role of government in addressing the crisis are the reasons behind the ideological battle between progressivism and neoliberalism in the Democratic Party and the continuing struggle for direction in the Republican Party. As many seek the presidency in the November 2020 election, all candidates and of course the eventual winner will face decisions that may be as critical and difficult as those confronted by Barack Obama. This book aims to provide them guidance from history.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2019 Reed Hundt (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.Listeners also enjoyed...
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- Narrated by: Ellen Archer
- Length: 14 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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In this searing exposé, former Wall Street insider Nomi Prins shows how the 2007-2008 financial crisis turbo-boosted the influence of central bankers and triggered a massive shift in the world order. Packed with tantalizing details about the elite players orchestrating the world economy, Collusion takes the listener inside the most discreet conversations at exclusive retreats like Jackson Hole and Davos. A work of meticulous reporting and bracing analysis, Collusion will change the way we understand the new world of international finance.
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Fair history survey, lazy characterizations
- By Philo on 05-09-18
By: Nomi Prins
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Confidence Men
- Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President
- By: Ron Suskind
- Narrated by: James Lurie
- Length: 22 hrs
- Unabridged
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The hidden history of Wall Street and the White House comes down to a single American concept: confidence. Both centers of power, New York and Washington, learned how to manufacture it - until August 2007, when that confidence began to crumble. Ron Suskind here tells the story of what happened next, as Wall Street struggled to save itself while a man with little experience and soaring rhetoric emerged from obscurity to usher in "a new era of responsibility".
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Insightful, but...
- By Ray on 10-29-11
By: Ron Suskind
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The Battle
- How the Fight Between Free Enterprise and Big Government Will Shape America's Future
- By: Arthur C. Brooks
- Narrated by: Arthur C. Brooks
- Length: 3 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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America faces a new culture war. It is not a war about guns, abortions, or gays; rather it is a war against the creeping changes to our entrepreneurial culture, the true bedrock of who we are as a people. The new culture war is a battle between free enterprise and social democracy. Many Americans have forgotten the evils of socialism and the predations of the American Great Society's welfare-state programs.
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Right wing
- By John on 12-22-10
By: Arthur C. Brooks
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Audacity
- How Barack Obama Defied His Critics and Created a Legacy That Will Prevail
- By: Jonathan Chait
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Over the course of eight years, Barack Obama has amassed an array of outstanding achievements. His administration saved the American economy from collapse, expanded health insurance to millions who previously could not afford it, negotiated an historic nuclear deal with Iran, helped craft a groundbreaking international climate accord, reined in Wall Street, and crafted a new vision of racial progress.
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Good and balanced view of the Obama years
- By Paul on 02-01-17
By: Jonathan Chait
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The Great American Stick Up
- Greedy Bankers and the Politicians Who Love Them
- By: Robert Scheer
- Narrated by: Christian Rummel
- Length: 6 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Instead of going where other journalists have gone in search of this story - the board rooms and trading floors of the big Wall Street firms - Scheer goes back to Washington, D.C., a veritable crime scene, beginning in the 1980s, where the captains of the finance industry, their lobbyists and allies among leading politicians destroyed an American regulatory system that had been functioning effectively since the era of the New Deal.
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A great telling of an unfortunate part of history
- By Trace on 10-27-20
By: Robert Scheer
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All the Presidents' Bankers
- The Hidden Alliances That Drive American Power
- By: Nomi Prins
- Narrated by: Marguerite Gavin
- Length: 19 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Nomi Prins ushers us into the intimate world of exclusive clubs, vacation spots, and Ivy League universities that binds presidents and financiers. She unravels the multi-generational blood, intermarriage, and protégé relationships that have confined national influence to a privileged cluster of people. This unprecedented history of American power illuminates how financiers have retained their authoritative position through history, swaying presidents regardless of party affiliation.
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You better like history about the elite and rich
- By Victor on 01-12-15
By: Nomi Prins
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Yellen
- The Trailblazing Economist Who Navigated an Era of Upheaval
- By: Jon Hilsenrath
- Narrated by: Jon Hilsenrath, Seth Podowitz
- Length: 11 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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An engrossing and deeply human chronicle of the past fifty years of American economic and social upheaval, viewed through the consequential life of the most powerful woman in American economic history, Janet Yellen, and her unconventional partnership in marriage and work with Nobel Laureate George Akerlof.
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Must read
- By Ali on 03-26-24
By: Jon Hilsenrath
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Goliath
- The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy
- By: Matt Stoller
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 20 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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A startling look at how concentrated financial power and consumerism transformed American politics, resulting in the emergence of populism and authoritarianism, the fall of the Democratic Party - while also providing the steps needed to create a new democracy.
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The Fall of American Populist Economics
- By Charlie Morton on 02-26-20
By: Matt Stoller
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Fault Lines
- How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World's Economy
- By: Raghuram Rajan
- Narrated by: Richard Davidson
- Length: 12 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Raghuram Rajan was one of the few economists who warned of the global financial crisis before it hit. Now, as the world struggles to recover, it's tempting to blame what happened on just a few greedy bankers who took irrational risks and left the rest of us to foot the bill. In Fault Lines, Rajan argues that serious flaws in the economy are also to blame, and warns that a potentially more devastating crisis awaits us if they aren't fixed.
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A REAL SNOOZER
- By Frank on 12-02-10
By: Raghuram Rajan
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A Generation of Sociopaths
- How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America
- By: Bruce Cannon Gibney
- Narrated by: Wayne Pyle
- Length: 14 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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What happens when a society is run by people who are antisocial? Welcome to baby boomer America. In A Generation of Sociopaths, Bruce Cannon Gibney shows how America was hijacked by the boomers, a generation whose reckless self-indulgence degraded the foundations of American prosperity.
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Honest introspection required
- By Niki on 03-31-17
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The Best Worst President
- What the Right Gets Wrong About Barack Obama
- By: Mark Hannah
- Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Political analyst and Democratic campaign veteran Mark Hannah gives Barack Obama the victory lap he deserves in this compendium that takes the president's critics head-on and celebrates the president's many underappreciated triumphs.
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Thought-provoking
- By Jean on 07-11-16
By: Mark Hannah
What listeners say about A Crisis Wasted
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Atsu
- 01-09-22
it's alright
little ti sympathetic to Obama as a person. He was the president, he made the decisions.
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- MoonUnit
- 02-21-21
This is a five star book; listen when you can concentrate
This book was invaluable for increasing my understanding of the Obama administration. The author is well-reasoned and compelling. I’m glad he wrote this book. I, too, never want such a crisis to be wasted. I want politicians to read this. Sometimes you just have to think bigger.
It might be better read this in book format, however. It’s sufficiently detailed to to be difficult to understand in one pass (at least for me). This was particularly true in the middle chapters on the development of the Obama stimulus package, less so in the beginning and end. I usually only listened to this when I could focus exclusively on it.
It’s not the narrator’s fault, btw. He sounds wise, reasonable, worldly and with just the right impression of dry wit. I though he was great choice for this. It’s just dense subject matter.
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- J. Pulton
- 03-06-21
Compelling account of Obama’s 1st year
The premise of the book is that a bigger stimulus and more heroic effort to prevent foreclosures would have been economically and politically better than the approach taken by the Obama administration. Instead, the Obama administration prioritized getting Republican votes for the stimulus package, fiscal responsibility, and a quick pivot to healthcare reform.
The author includes quotes that give a fair reading to the opposing views. For example, solving the underwater mortgage crisis would have been expensive ($750 billion), regressive (would only benefit those who could afford a house), and politically problematic (unfair to people who bought houses they could afford). He also discusses the origin of the tea party: Santelli’s original “tea party” protest of bailing out underwater homeowners.
It is sometimes unclear in audible format when the author is speaking for himself, and when he is quoting someone else. Given that the author is very fair to people he disagrees with, I hope I didn’t attribute thoughts to him that he in fact disagrees with.
You will probably find the book a hard read if you don’t have a good familiarity with the 2008 financial crisis, the early years of the Obama administration, and the people involved. I previously read Tim Geithner’s “Stress Test” and Alan Blinder’s “After the Music Stopped” which were good background for this book.
Overall the book is more assertion than argument. Of course, it is hard to prove a counterfactual, so I don’t hold this against the author. Given that the economic recovery disappointed and inflation remained muted, it’s easy with 20/20 hindsight to argue that the stimulus was too small, but he does show that some evidence for this was available at the time. His assertion that, from a political perspective, political capital would have been better spent on a larger stimulus rather than Obamacare is persuasive. And the focus on shovel ready projects - so as not to stimulate the economy after the recession ended - clearly didn’t pan out. The economy took years to fully recover and would have benefited from infrastructure spending well into the 2010s.
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- Mariana Nolasco
- 09-20-20
Somewhat complicated, not audiobook material
i found it interesting (not incredibly interesting to be honest) but to me it is a book that needs to be read and not heard. It requires you to understand american politics throughly (I’m a political science student) and still you need to pay very close attention in order to completely understand and not lose track of the topic.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Sandy
- 01-09-22
Good information on politicians.
Well done. I have been listening to books on politics and learning about how things happen. Showing how little people really know why things have been going so badly.
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