Just Ryan today with a quick pre-New Hampshire episode going through Reed Hundt's excellent book A Crisis Wasted about the presidential transition in 2007-8 and Obama's consequential early decisions as president. We go through how Obama allowed Bush Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to set the priorities for the bank bailout (thus ensuring Wall Street would not be cut down to size), how Obama allowed his Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to turn homeowner assistance policy into a quiet backdoor bailout of the banks, and how the Obama administration definitely could have gotten a bigger stimulus but chose not to. Having the right person in the presidential chair matters a great deal.
Links to the episodes and articles mentioned: Eric Rauchway on the Hoover-FDR transition, Carolyn Sissoko on the bailout disaster, and David Dayen on what the next president could do without passing any new laws.