The news today shows that President Obama and the Democrats have very low approval ratings. Also, people do not think Obama has improved the economy, and they also (by 90%, according to the polls) feel the economy is in bad shape.
It's a year and a half since Obama took office. When he took office, the U.S. and in fact the world economy was on the verge of total and disastrous collapse, as many economists and other scholars have said. Obama acted very quickly to enact measures (mainly the now infamous "bail-outs") that staved off that collapse that would have ruined us, as individuals and as a country.
It's true that not everything is rosey. There are mixed indicators of the state of the economy. Many economists say the economy is improving; it's growing, albeit slowly and not quickly enough to appease Obama's critics.
Obama is not to blame for the economic problems of our country. A year and a half should not be too difficult a period to remember back. Many problems were caused by (1) the banking industry, which had made loans ("subprime loans") to many, many people who could not afford them; and (2) by Wall Street, with innovative and overly complicated new investment vehicles (generally those called "derivatives"). (3) Lack of government regulation and oversight permitted (1) and (2) to occur. This deregulation of the financial sector was not Obama's doing nor even George W. Bush's, but went back through several presidential administrations.
No one should expect any miraculous turnaround in the time that Obama has been president. When the U.S. was in the grips of the Great Depression, President Roosevelt instituted many programs to stimulate the economy, but full recovery from the Depression did not occur until there was the stimulus to industry provided by arming for World War II.
Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein
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Agreed. Much of the negativism toward President Obama is political in essence. There are and have been those witing in the wings all along ready to attack anything Obama does or doesn't do. As noted there have been significant multiple factors contributing to the economic downturn and over a period of years. Obviously there isn't a quick fix to such a situation. I hate to think what things would have been like with McCain-Palin running things. Somehow I think there would have ended up even more stark disparity between the ranks of rich and poor. I want things to get and hope at some point that at some point politics will be set aside in the best interest of getting our country and its economy up to speed and healthy again.
ReplyDelete(Sorry for my typos..Should be waiting in the wings snd want things to get better)
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