Obama's Economy

Has Obama finally turned things around?

or at least STARTED fixing some of the many messes George and the GOP got us into?
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This is slow-going, but yes, President Obama has turned us back in the right direction towards a full recovery. This has been true all along, actually, but indicators have been sporadic and uneven. The full extent of the meltdown is shown on “FRONTLINE: Inside the Meltdown” in terms of the housing/credit markets, the bank failures, Wall Street’s collapse, and AIG (which insures the banks) going under, due mostly to deregulation that allowed greed and high-risk activities to flourish. What is not shown, however, is the rippling (or domino) effect of the massive price-gouging on gas prices for more than a year of the Bush/Cheney (oilmen) presidency which precipitated all the defaults and wreaked havoc on city and state budgets as well. The chain went something like this: Gas prices (despite a surplus) rose daily, reaching $4 or higher per gallon. People maxed out credit cards, started curtailing purchases in local stores, juggled their bills just to keep up and get to and from their jobs. As the credit cards were maxed out and the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac problems could no longer be hidden, people’s credit scores fell because of debt:income ratios, and stores began cutting hours and personnel to offset higher prices of deliveres plus less consumer spending…and so on. No one has figured these effects into the equation so far, but economists should have, because people began falling farther and farther behind, which meant even less spending, no travel (no tourist dollars states needed), no holiday spending (which stores rely on at the end of each year), and implosion of our economy prompted people to try to refinance, but credit markets had dried up, interest rates rose, house payments went up, defaults began…and then came the crash, the meltdown (which had been building all through the first six years of the totalitarian Republican rule wherein Norquist’s “starve the beast” was in play and spending was out of control, creating huge deficits made worse by two wars (one illegal) and no-bid contracts for corrupt companies…

President Obama halted the no-bid contracts, which is probably why Cheney crawled out of the woodwork to protest (Halliburton; KBR). The president also halted the failed (con job) “trickle-down” supply-side economics that has produced bad results for each of the three Republican presidents who tried to cram it down our throats (including the collapse of the Savings and Loan industry that President Clinton inherited and subsequently repaired). Although less than half of the Recovery and Reinvestment Act has been distributed in order to stretch the results out over a two-year period, the stimulus dollars are working, in some states better than in others. The regulations (and re-regulations) President Obama is proposing for Wall Street, banking, credit/housing markets, insurance industry, etc. are designed to prevent another meltdown in the future and also to provide consumer protections (curtailing massive unrestrained greed and corruption among CEOs). This means he is showing tremendous political courage, taking unrestrained access to “candy” away from some very powerful and spoiled-brat billionaire “babies” used to no checks and balances. We need to support the Obama administration and the Democrats in this effort in order to have a more balanced playing field. In the long run, this effort will return us to a “rational moderation” mode that has worked very well for our economy in the past. I’d like to see more people do community assessments in their home districts to determine groups’ needs and available resources, then start small businesses to meet these needs just to get our job markets up and running again. Small businesses are part of this nation’s backbone, so a bit of creative thinking by young entrepreneurs might help get a few up and running (with a bit of help from state grants and/or the Stimulus). Here’s an idea: An agent can make at least 15% from a client, so what if someone who knows construction (which is lagging) or mechanics offers a service to accompany potential buyers and point out savings on the asking prices or identifies what needs to be fixed by the seller or deducted from the price before buying, thus saving the buyer considerable money (and receiving a 15% commission from the total savings).