The Great Depression that didn't happen

Washington

THERE is no mystery about Barack Obama's greatest presidential achievement: He stopped the Great Recession from becoming the second Great Depression. True, he had plenty of help, including from his predecessor, George W Bush, and from the top officials at the Treasury and Federal Reserve. But if Mr Obama had made one wrong step, what was a crushing economic slump could have become something much worse.

In the coming weeks, we will be swamped with analyses of Mr Obama's legacy. His foreign policy will be critiqued, as it is already. Once in the White House, Donald Trump may trash some of Mr Obama's favourite policies: the Affordable Care Act; the programme on climate change; the Dodd-Frank law on financial regulation. All this may wrongly foster the notion that Mr Obama accomplished almost nothing.