Thread by @ClaireBerlinski

Chapter 2 is called "A Safer Economy," and begins by plotting American financial crises from 1796 to 1929. (In between were the crises of 1819, 1837, 1857, 1873, 1893, and 1907.)

Then the Big One. This comes with anecdotes about how her family got through the Great Depression and the emotional scars it left. She recalls her Ant Bee describing the strangers who showed up "nearly every morning at my grandparents' back door."

"She said they were gaunt, with dark circles etched under their eyes and clothes that hung loose: 'All skin and bones.'"

Enter FDR.

FDR "rejected the idea that economic booms and busts were inevitable--that they were part of the natural order, much like floods and forest fires. Instead, he proposed that we pass laws to make the economy safer."

Enter FDIC, Glass-Steagall, the SEC.

"They were all built on one crucial idea: banking is special, and only if it is carefully governed can the rest of the economy flourish."

Then the trust-busting. "By the 1930s, the idea began to take root that without basic rules, markets won't work."

An odd sentence here: "This history may seem like a dusty tale about a time long past, but the economic battles of the 1930s were as intense as any attack launched during the over-the-top 2016 political season."

What does it say about our collective memory that she phrases it that way? I would have used the inverse allusion: "The present moment calls to mind the 1930s." Has an invocation of the 1930s ceased to make people shudder?

Do the 1930s really seem like "a dusty tale a long time past?"

She notes correctly that Roosevelt was decried as a socialist. She's presenting herself as a new Roosevelt.

"Regulation worked. In the postwar era, the boom-and-bust economy was gone. ... as our country got richer, our families got richer. By 1960 ... it was clear that America had produced the equivalent of an economic miracle: we had built the greatest middle class on earth."

Enter the villain: Lewis Powell and the Chamber of Commerce.

I'm clearly not going to agree with her about Reagan. But I do think she's right about the S&L crisis and reckless bank deregulation. Obviously, she is.

It would be more convenient for her historiography if it had not been Clinton who repealed Glass-Steagall.

I was about to say, "But that's too much to ask of someone running for the Democratic nomination,"

but I wonder: is it? Partisan polarization is really one of the biggest obstacles we face toward governing ourselves. Is it too much to ask that candidates for the presidency stop feeding it mindlessly?

There's a good scene on pp. 85-86 describing "Julie of the OCC" and her smooth, serene unwillingness to investigate shady credit card issuers on the grounds that "the banks wouldn't like it."

She believes the banks are no safer than they were before and we're headed for another major financial crisis. In the footnotes, she cites this paper: brookings.edu/bpea-articles/… And that's the end of the chapter.