From the Mailbag...

Anonymous writes in: "I'm curious -- why do you think Obama's new gang will be any better?"

Simple, because Obama's new gang does not include Larry Summers! I think that really does imply that the new gang will at least be less-bad than before. One of the under-rated mistakes that the administration made was not changing course on the stimulus once it became as clear as day that it was just going to be too small. That was a Larry Summers-type mistake. I don't think there will be any major changes in policy however, and anyway, with a Republican House Gene Sperling and the new economic team is way more limited in what they can do to influence the economy than was Larry Summers and the old economic team.