The Obama Administration is staffed with the usual mix of academics, policy insiders and elites, and politicians. Washington is a rather institutionally incestual place: the same people rotate out of government and into Wall Street and lobbying firms, and back to government as political parties shift. Most of them have the same interests in mind and the same broad general framework for how the world works. In other words, there is no fresh thinking, no reconceptualization's of outmoded ideas.
This is reflected in the people the major party candidates chose to surround themselves with when running a campaign or organizing an administration.
Take a look at the folks who advised McCain's campaign last year and the people who staff Obama's administration today. On the Republican side, McCain had Phil Gramm as one of his primary advisors, who drafted the 1999 Financial Deregulation law that allowed the banks and insurance companies to speculate in the derivatives markets.
Many believe that this law created the economic environment that led up to last year's credit crisis.
McCain also had James Glassman on his advisory panel, who wrote a book in 1999 titled "Dow 36,000" which essentially stated that the stock markets would see a long term expansion, largely fueled by new developments in the technology sector. A year later, the tech bubble imploded.
On the other side, Obama has Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers, both of whom pushed for the above stated deregulation regime. Today they remain reluctant to embrace substantive reform despite public pressure to do otherwise.
I should note that my view on the matter of regulation of any kind is that a moderate, common sense approach should be applied. Rampant free market ideology is a dangerous thing, but too much regulation also can damage the business environment, especially if taken too far. In the late 1990's, the pendulum swung excessively towards extreme deregulation. The result was excessive speculation and incurring unnecessary credit risks.
My broader point though is that we don't have much of a choice when it comes to selecting candidates from the major parties. It is indeed only an illusion of choice. Both candidates backed the same economic strategies, including the bailouts and bubble economics, and the same foreign policy frameworks. And now we're expecting the same people who had a hand in creating this mess to lead us out of the problem?
