*Blaming the doctor for saving my life

FT columnist Martin Wolf nicely sums up public attitudes about Obama's economic policies:

An ambulance stops by the roadside to help a man suffering from a heart attack. After desperate measures, the patient survives. Brought into hospital, he then makes a protracted and partial recovery. Then, two years later, far from feeling grateful, he sues the paramedics and doctors. If it were not for their interference, he insists, he would be as good as new. As for the heart attack, it was a minor event. He would have been far better off if he had been left alone.

Wolf writes that the administration's policies were too timid, especially related to the labor market. He also says that "the hated TARP looks remarkably effective in hindsight." I wonder if that truth will ever see the light of day.

*Steven Rattner, the journalist-turned-investment banker who oversaw the auto industry rescue, goes at the truth in an interview with the Fiscal Times (via the Business Insider):

The Fiscal Times: Why do so many Americans still feel that the bailouts of the auto industry and the financial system were wrong?

Steven Rattner: I've been trying to push back on that, as a proud alumnus of this administration. First of all, you're trying to prove a counterfactual, that if we hadn't done these things, a disaster would have occurred. That's a very theoretical conversation and not one that many people can relate to. Secondly, we're in the middle of the election cycle, when people say wild things that may resonate with some sectors of the public. Republicans and some Democrats are running around talking about how the bailouts were terrible, that TARP was terrible. And that is just completely and utterly wrong.

TFT: Why are they wrong?

SR: Because TARP is the most important piece of economic legislation to come along in this country in the last 70 years. Without TARP, our financial system would have collapsed along with our auto sector. And if those two things had occurred, the entire economy would have collapsed. Without TARP, the administration would have had to go to Congress, and as we all know, Congress is completely dysfunctional. I don't believe it would have gotten its act together in time to prevent a very substantial amount of damage.