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In a piece this week on Barack Obama’s shift from idealism to pragmatism, Ryan Lizza describes an important fifty-seven-page document from Lawrence Summers to President-elect Barack Obama dated December 15, 2008:
Marked “Sensitive and Confidential,” the document, which has never been made public, presents Obama with the scale of the crisis. “The economic outlook is grim and deteriorating rapidly,” it said. The U.S. economy had lost two million jobs that year; without a government response, it would lose four million more in the next year. Unemployment would rise above nine per cent unless a significant stimulus plan was passed. The estimates were getting worse by the day.
- Above, the first page of the document. The full document is available on our website: http://nyr.kr/xtOEQl
