BUSINESS

Don’t Buy the Chirpy Forecasts

The history of banking crises indicates this one may be far from over.

NEWSWEEK
Published Mar 21, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Mar 30, 2009

« Return to Article

Discuss

Member Comments

  • Posted By: memo2 @ 04/01/2009 8:16:34 AM

    We all know finaly now part of the truth that is why I said many times before we need to satart selecting in each state hwo's going to represent us at the congress not in eight years from now, I'm talking from now from this month we need to be more open mind to understand hwo will represent each state!, we are the only ones can make this happen we need more honest people and we need to clean the congress with some bad apples.
    Another comment the problem is not the borrowers us the problem is with the financial institutions over the exaggerated incraces on the interest rate, congress new this all time since 1980, and just they play with it on different way's they new it and just they let it pass year after year, until now if you see the minimum rate of interest on credit card's is 17% , Housing is in some tiny states 4.45% or so , but the real problem all this people don't want give up, and prices still the same that is the real problem not only for us but for other's just can't buy almost anything here in this Country !. and tha is why we dont have any revenue since 1985, now not only killing us they killing they self's, and this end now some Country's trying to fix all this economic crisis dilemma they make they self''s, 30 year's ago Mr:Obama make a comment we only blame them for this economic situation well do we have reason to blame them or not? yes we are, are they have a plan we don't know yet because too much talk but nothing in concrete, just my comment we keep posted !......

  • Posted By: Open-minded @ 03/27/2009 8:13:19 PM

    Want to have a better understanding of what is actually happening? Please watch the Zeitgeist movie at www.zeitgeistmovie.com very educational and enlightening.

  • Posted By: Open-minded @ 03/27/2009 8:09:40 PM

    I invite those who really want to have a deeper understanding of the political game and the origin of all financial crisis to take a look at the movie zeitgeist at
    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7065205277695921912 or www.zeitgeistmovie.com
    Please have an open mind and be ready to be shocked. Only the truth will set you free. Those politician can not solve this financial crisis. The majority of us are brainwashed by the media, the political game and the financial institutions.
    All I can guarantee is that this movie is mind opening.

  • Posted By: Scott on the Spot @ 03/22/2009 10:24:05 AM

    The basic mistake the authors make, like so many Friedman/Chicago school economists, is to treat manmade resources and non-manmade resources as equally valued asset classes. At the base of the subprime/credit crisis, like all similar crises that have occurred every 18 years for the past 1,000 years (see: Mason Gaffney's "The Great Crash of 2008, written last summer), is land speculation. The way to cure that is to recognize that land acquires value not through anything those who own it do, as through population growth and prosperity. The land really belongs to all of us, unlike the fruits of productive enterprise, which ought to belong to the producers. The answer to these booms and busts is to untax production and to tax land (and oil, pollution, and anything that people do not make, that is the natural world). This will eliminate speculation by removing the source of it and returning "rent" of land in the form of taxes to the community. You would still have private property - you just could not speculate upon it. Henry George recognized this way back in 1879 in his best-selling economics book of all time, "Progress and Poverty." Today's Georgist, or more modernly called, Geonomics, movement, is striving to return to these natural laws of taxing non-manmade resources while untaxing wages and capital.
    Too much of the media is focused on regulating away greed (which is virtually a job requirement for bankers), instead of focusing on the core issue of people making a profit on assets they did not create.

    • Posted By: mykel1 @ 03/24/2009 6:20:59 PM

      Scott - I found this response to be quite illuminating and insightful. I believe you're correct that the solution involves taxing "non-manmade" (a.k.a., natural resources) while untaxing wages and capital. However, there is still that tricky issue that has plagued populist economists for hundreds of years - namely, how to deal with the inherent "evil" of landlords, who have the ability to raise rents/lease agreements to their advantage, especially at the cost of the tenant.

      Additionaly, part of the difficulty of implementing what you are suggesting is that for nearly 200 years, especially in the last 60, the U.S. has been a debt financed economy, meaning expansion only takes place when people with money actually lend it. That spigot has been largely choked off, and the government is trying like mad demons to get it flowing again, either directly financing new endeavors or what Geitner and Co. have been concocting, which is a way to entice people with money to invest in the economy again so the government does not have to do all the heavy lifting.

      Ultimately, and I think we're all seeing it coming, is how do we function as a society and prosper where personal reward is not the sole incentive for participation in the economy - basically, how we can take the best parts of capitalism, which in its purest form, via the invisible hand and creative destruction, can lead to a better quality of life for all to enjoy? If capitalism doesn't take the whole of humanity into account in its endeavors, then we really have to ask ourselves, what the hell are we doing with our natural resources, intellectual capital and creative tendencies? I think we're on a path to integrating a more "moral" sort of capitalism that isn't so exploitive into a socialist framework. For what good is prosperity if only a few benefit from it, hmmm?

    • Posted By: mykel1 @ 03/24/2009 6:13:25 PM

      Scott - I found this response to be quite illuminating and insightful. I believe you're correct that the solution involves taxing "non-manmade" (a.k.a., natural resources) while untaxing wages and capital. However, there is still that tricky issue that has plagued populist economists for hundreds of years - namely, how to deal with the inherent "evil" of landlords, who have the ability to raise rents/lease agreements to their advantage, especially at the cost of the tenant.

      Additionaly, part of the difficulty of implementing what you are suggesting is that for nearly 200 years, especially in the last 60, the U.S. has been a debt financed economy, meaning expansion only takes place when people with money actually lend it. That spigot has been largely choked off, and the government is trying like mad demons to get it flowing again, either directly financing new endeavors or what Geitner and Co. have been concocting, which is a way to entice people with money to invest in the economy again so the government does not have to do it all the heavy lifting.

      Ultimately, and I think we're all seeing it coming, is how do we function as a society and prosper where personal reward is not the sole incentive for participation in the economy - basically, how we can take the best parts of capitalism, which in its purest form, via the invisible hand and creative destruction, can lead to a better quality of life for all to enjoy? If capitalism doesn't take the whole of humanity into account in its endeavors, then we really have to ask ourselves, what the hell are we doing with our natural resources and intellectual capital? I think we're on a path to integrating a more "moral" sort of capitalism that isn't so exploitive into a socialist framework. For what good is prosperity if only a few benefit from it, hmmm?

      • Posted By: mykel1 @ 03/24/2009 6:15:02 PM

        Bad grammar in some spots - my apologies. I should proofread better. :P

  • Posted By: gvillagran3 @ 03/24/2009 9:10:35 AM

    For as much as we want to focus the financial crisis on U.S. Banks, the real crisis started, and will end with our U.S. Dollar. At it's root the crisis we are living is a crisis of Currency Exchanges. The media understandably has focused in the news comming from Wall Street, and Main Street portraing them as all important, but the real news come from our bankers, that is to say the Asian countries.

    The constant trade inbalance we had experienced for decades combined by our non-existent savings rate made us a poor nation, living like a rich one. Asian nations save, and produce much more than Western Countries, but their currencies never reflected that change in their parity with the U.S. Dollar. That crated the housing bubble, that created the tremendous influx of foreign capital into the U.S.that in turn created the tremndous risk taking by our self appointed Financial Leaders with the disastrous consecuences we see now.

    INEXPENSIVE CAPITAL FLOWING TO AMERICA FROM ASIA is at the root of our problems. It allowed the U.S> to maintain low interest rates without requiring any savings from Americas. It made it possible to have salary extagnation (low inflation) , and economic expantion at the same time, it made our housing and commercial markets over priced by creating a feeding frenzy of speculation fueld by low interest rates for too long.

    Not surprisingly China is now talking (with plenty of support) about replacingthe U.S. Dollar with a world currency more able to divorce itself from American style politicians (Republican and Democrat) that have grown to adept at creating ever increasing deficits. Obama in the next few years will devalue the U.S. Dollar to pay for the enormous deficits and China knows it. The strategy is keep the U.S. Doolar strong for now to finance the deficits at a low interest rate, and when you are trough the financing fase, devalue the U.S> Dollar to pay the debt with inflated Dollars.

    Is a trick as old as Capitalism. America can get away with it because the U.S. Dollar has no competition as the International reserve currency (for now) . It will pay off our debt. But the trade back is that the Dollar will no longer keep it's status as the World's reserve currency, for no country will be foolish enough to finance our debt only to see their holdings devalued so that executives in Wall Street, and politicians in Washington can keep up their now entranged irresponsibility.

  • Posted By: GregHere @ 03/23/2009 8:12:04 PM

    ............................Things are starting to turn around and it is being reflected in the Stock Market rise in the past two weeks and the knowledge that the incompetent George Bush-Whacker is out of office and back in Texas. The Obama Administration is working with the underlying problems and beginning to deal with the greedy manipulatiors who have brought America down.

    • Posted By: KingKongvsKoKo @ 03/24/2009 5:13:00 AM

      Let's not oversimplify -- the market always rallies before it really nosedives. Look at historical trends, it's all there in the charts. It's rallying because of the savings being passed along to you, the taxpayer, who will enjoy paying hand over fist for junk assets not worth a nickel on a good day..Greedy shareholders rally when companies lay off employees under the pretext of necessary scale down -- despite layoffs being one of the more unimaginative measures to take to save money at the bottom line. Both *** are in the wringer on this one, and they'll stay there for the long haul, which is a hell of a lot longer than a fiscal quarter or two. That's not life you see, it's last reflexes.

  • Posted By: DarkRedMatter @ 03/22/2009 10:25:02 AM

    This administration cannot tell us how deep the banking woes really go and still expect the American people to sing off on the largest spending increases in world history. So, their head-in-the-sand act is in fact just a tactic they are using to twick us silly rabbits into blissfully proceeding with Obama's American makeover.

    • Posted By: JustAThought56 @ 03/24/2009 2:34:25 AM

      This is, unfortunately, not a makeover. This is a continuation of the strategy initiated by Paulson last fall. It is a variation on the bailout theme. The real government is not the one sitting in Congress carping about an $800 billion TARP fund. The real government is a handful of corporations and their financial gurus. Paulson and Bernanke shift trillions of taxpayer dollars into their coffers, propping up their global financial house of cards. They are completely outside of Congressional oversight and control, and we act like anything the President or Congress does matters, or that the budget matters. It does not. They are not in charge. Right now there are a few loud mouthed, power hungry sociopaths who are trying to get in front of the wave so they can strut around and feel like a big deal. They are completely irrelevant.

      This world belongs to a few, powerful, moneyed elite, not to us. They manipulate us to support the type of government that takes away their corporate taxes and removes the regulations that protected us. They own the media that manipulates people like you into thinking there is such a thing as right wing and left wing, conservative and liberal, Democrat and Republican. They own both parties and every politician, and they do not give a damn about you unless you have been hired to run their global casinos for them - in that case, you get multimillion dollar bonuses.

      The really funny part of all of this is that the only thing that could possibly derail them is a true revolution against capitalism, and they use their media to make the very people who would benefit most from universal health care, who would benefit from increased corporate taxes and regulations, from nationalizing the banking system and getting this cancer under control, the very people who would benefit the most ,their media has them running around arming up for their turn in the militia movement.

      There is no capitalism. There is no democracy. There certainly is no socialism. There is only oligarchy and whatever they damn well please is what is going to happen. It is a miracle that President Obama made it to the White House at all. If McCain had acted with an ounce of common sense and kept his mouth shut, he would have been elected. It was tied until the market crashed and he made it obvious he was clueless. Despite the fact that the most unpopular president since WWI was a Republican leaving office, the one coming in would have been Republican,too.

  • Posted By: RO in Reno @ 03/23/2009 5:56:03 AM

    Until the word "production" becomes once again a part of the current description of capitalism, they will be no sustainable recovery.
    It has been noted perhaps a million times the real recovery from the Great depression did not occur until the production of the implements of war started.
    I certainly am not suggesting the start of yet another war; but the reinvention of production, free enterprise.
    The problem is what capitalism has become excludes the concept of goods and the production of goods.
    Nixon's service economy has come full circle, exacerbated and aided by the trickle down economics of an elitist view that if the wealthy control all the cash we will have a healthy economy. Now we see the end result of that short sighted policy.
    True capitalism requires the production of goods, not just services as those in the service sector seem to believe in spite of the clear over whelming evident to the contrary.
    Propping up the "Service" sector is only a band aid applied to a patient who has just lost his legs.
    People in the service sector seem to not comprehend this, perhaps it's understandable since they have never actually produced a thing in their lives.
    America has become a nation of attorneys, insurance salesmen, brokers, and CPA's preachers, and consultants.
    It should be no surprise there are few to provide services too, given the largely successful effort to eliminate those who produce goods from the economy.
    Once fully 28% of Americans earned a living in the production of goods; it now is 8% that is 20% of Americans eliminated from the consumer base. Yet we have these "Service folks unable to comprehend why there are fewer consumers.
    The once important manufacturing infrastructure also fueled construction of facilities and homes for those workers; now with a 50% unemployment rate. That unemployment reaches all the way to the mining industry that provides the raw materials for what we once produced.

    The author may think we are on the right track, and I agree the President does appear to have a clue about this with his stated intent to develop and keep the production of Green products in this country.
    But for the most part any effort to correct a problem has to begin with the recognition of the problem and that has yet to occur.
    Much of this has been fueled for decades as a direct result of the resentment of higher wages for those who actually produced something by those who produce nothing. But have profited handsomely in the process. Now of course it should be clear that is unsustainable and is not capitalism as they claim it to be, but greed at it's highest level.

    • Posted By: Osama Bin Login @ 03/23/2009 5:27:58 PM

      "Until the word "production" becomes once again a part of the current description of capitalism, they will be no sustainable recovery."

      This is the correct answer.

      "It has been noted perhaps a million times the real recovery from the Great depression did not occur until the production of the implements of war started."

      This, on the other hand, is absolute garbage. Unemployment dropped from 24.1% in 1932 to 14% in 1938, and was still dropping. The war hastened things, but the recovery was already under way.

  • Posted By: newstweak @ 03/22/2009 7:12:19 PM

    Fine and dandy, but will it really help to "start basing" our "actions on more realistic assessments of where we are and what is likely still to come"? Or is the damage already done. Short of undertaking really stupid policies, is there really anything that will dramatically change the way this thing will play out?

    • Posted By: nimodahooligan @ 03/23/2009 12:58:17 PM

      i dont think so, at this point, its all about the waiting game, or just good timing for a big solution. all we have to do is keep working (if you have a job), keep pumping money into american business's, local/small business, and making small investements to start. i think anyway. im no expert.

  • Posted By: Mr Pepper @ 03/23/2009 9:35:00 AM

    The premise of this article is to pontificate the meirits of caution, which is good. At the same time, what marks out crises is not just the 'technical' aspects, but, being a heavily consumerized marketplace, you have to take in consideration perceptions and human psychology, and the role of 'confidence' as being a driver and engine of growth.
    That is whole pure economics will always offer a limited window on problems and, more importantly, on the ultimate solutions. President Obama knows that if he can 'kick-start' confidence, then the momentum build-up is all but assured.
    Positive thinking.is thus the key.

    • Posted By: nimodahooligan @ 03/23/2009 12:56:05 PM

      thank you for understanding. its going to take more of a psychological stimulus than a monetary one to get the economy humming again. "confidence" is key to inter human relations, economic success, and general growth of civilization. if no one is confident in they're abilities as individuals, then the confidence of society drops as a natural reaction. and really, the "free market" system would do well to get rid of its hailed "consumer confidence" bit and how they exploit it throuhg the media and stocks...only furthering the panic and driving the economy lower with every word they speak.

  • Posted By: Dredd @ 03/22/2009 12:10:59 PM

    Excellent article. Good food for thought.

    Evidently they are going to try to sell the toxic assets at 6 to 8 cents on the dollar.

    That has to be wildly optimistic.

  • Posted By: gvillagran3 @ 03/22/2009 11:20:24 AM

    The subprime Lending crisis at the root of our current problems is just the syntom of a larger, more dangerous inbalance we face. I am refering to the unsustainable credit induced trade deficits we have experienced in the last 10 years.
    It is no secret that the consecuence of adding 1 Billion + people to the Capitalist "game" with the entrance and resurgence of China some 15 years ago changed the rules forever embarking us into a Capitalist experiment for which we have no presedent.
    In China, the consecuence of the enormous influx of low cost , hard working, and very smart labor floading the market was a historic event whose ultimate consecuences were in retrospect hardly understood by the Western Economies. Indeed in America, and Europe the awakening of China was seen as a win, win situation. We will open now a 1 Billion + market, and we will be benefited by a flood of low cost articles that will keep our inflation low.
    Soon enough the inbalance started to take place in the form of ever increasing trade deficits.The normal Capitalist way to adjust to trade inbalances is by CURRENCY ADJUSTMENTS -- But here, we failed misserably.

    As the deficits went up, and our country added to its debt, Asia replaced what would have been a normal adjustment in monetary policy with easy credit, and currency market "fixing" to maintain the u.S. Dollar strong. The trade was clear, and the agreement was done at the highest levels.

    Western Economies do not become protectionist, and demand that currency manipulations stop, and in return Asian companies supply us with easy low cost credit, and excellent low cost products. We in the West get a never ending prosperity , and China prospers by giving employment to it's masses.

    It did not work. And now we simply don't have an economic model that can take us forward. That is the stark reality of our Economic crisis. The Capitalism of the future will have to account for what is now over 2 Billion people (India, Indonesia, China, etc) in need of a job and a buyer for their product-- And America can't help any more.

  • Posted By: Painesright @ 03/22/2009 10:25:00 AM

    Peter Schiff, who predicted this meltdown starting about 7years ago, was featured several times last week on a Canadian program, The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos (what a name!!). In these 5 short videos (about 2 minutes 30 seconds each), "Dr. Doom" clearly spells out why the meltdown happened, what is making it worse and what we need to do to fix it (hint, it ain't what they are doing right now!). Well worth your time! Slide to 15 seconds to skip the intro.
    Part 1:
    http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/videos.html?id=1064299288
    Part 2
    http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/videos.html?id=1064759160
    Part 3
    http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/videos.html?id=1065863016
    Part 4
    http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/videos.html?id=1066285777
    Part 5
    http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/videos.html?id=1066258204

  • Posted By: Painesright @ 03/22/2009 10:23:11 AM

    Peter Schiff , who predicted this meltdown starting about 7years ago, was featured several times last week on a Canadian program, The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos (what a name!!). In these 5 short videos (about 2 minutes 30 seconds each), "Dr. Doom" clearly spells out why the meltdown happened, what is making it worse and what we need to do to fix it (hint, it ain't what they are doing right now!). Well worth your time! Slide to 15 seconds to skip the intro.
    Part 1:
    http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/videos.html?id=1064299288
    Part 2
    http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/videos.html?id=1064759160
    Part 3
    http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/videos.html?id=1065863016
    Part 4
    http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/videos.html?id=1066285777
    Part 5
    http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/videos.html?id=1066258204

  • Posted By: Henry C. Carey @ 03/22/2009 10:12:50 AM

    In 1932 the Banksters put together a similar Geithner Fund called "Stars and Stripes Forever". This hoax was, and is, built on propping up Zombie Banks like: Citibank, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan, and Bank of America (which should be called DOA). The funds were/are supposed to prop up worthless investments: in the 1920's, National City Bank employed 1900 bond salesmen to push worthless bonds from various countries like Mexico and Hungary.

    35 banks pumped $100 million into The "Stars and Stripes Forever" Bond fund to buy these worthless assets at inflated prices from investors. Needless to say, it failed, as will the Geithner Fund.

    These Banksters should be taken over by the FDIC in bankruptcy receivership, and the healthy portion of their banks should remain open to the public during standard reorganization. Trillions of derivative contracts should be abrogated as failing the test of Glass-Steagall law, which should be readopted as emergency measure by Congress.

    President Obama: fire Summers, and give Geithner a clerk position in the Treasury Department, and assign him to read Alexander Hamilton's Report on Manufactures and Report on Credit.

  • Posted By: ChicagoMary @ 03/22/2009 9:42:52 AM

    What can We The People do about the control of so many Wall Street & Private Bankers in Obama's inner circle? I do not like the Foxes gaurding Our Taxpaying Hen House.

    Not only Geithner and Summersin the Wall Street Inner Circle but so is Rahm Emanuel

    Rahm Emanuel was an investment banker and he was on the Board of Directors of Freddie Mac.

    After serving as an advisor to Bill Clinton, in 1998 Emanuel resigned from his position in the Clinton administration. He then became an investment banker at Wasserstein Perella (now Dresdner Kleinwort), where he worked until 2002.

    In 2 1/2 years, Rahm made over $16 million dollars as an private investment banker.

    In 1999, he became a managing director at the firm???s Chicago office. Emanuel made $16.2 million in his two-and-a-half-year stint as a banker, according to Congressional disclosures. At Wasserstein Perella, he worked on eight deals, including the acquisition by Commonwealth Edison of Peco Energy and the purchase by GTCR Golder Rauner of the SecurityLink home security unit from SBC Communications.

    Emanuel was named to the Board of Directors for the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation ("Freddie Mac") by then President Bill Clinton in 2000. His position paid him $31,060 in 2000 and $231,655 in 2001. During the time Emanuel spent on the board, Freddie Mac was plagued with scandals involving campaign contributions and accounting irregularities.

    The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) later accused the board of having "failed in its duty to follow up on matters brought to its attention." Emanuel resigned from the board in 2001 when he ran for congress.

    As William Shakespeare once said:

    "Something is rotten in the inner circle".

  • Posted By: Gazinya @ 03/22/2009 9:23:35 AM

    Remember that we are dealing with money. It is a tool to be used. Money can generate prosperity or destroy achivement. The biggist problem we have as a nation, in my opinion, is that the people who are in charge of spending the money they don't earn do not understand HOW to use this tool. It doesn't matter, to me, about which political suit the person wears but what they know about how to spend my taxes. NONE of the congresses in the past 20 years knows a damn thing about the economy and these are the same 'empty suits' we keep putting in office. These 'suits' have never had to earn or have ever had to learn to use and or make money. At least not at my level and not honestly.

  • Posted By: laissez faire 2009 @ 03/22/2009 8:13:22 AM

    First Obama was being criticized for being too pessimistic about the economy and talking the economy down and for doing too much, acting too aggressively, juggling too many things at once???blah..blah..blah. Now Newsweek claims he is ???underestimating the financial crisis??? and being too optimistic. Did these journalist even listen to Obama???s somber inaugural? Did he not say this would take years to fix? This is absolutely ridiculous. The critics have no alternative plan and really no viable ideas???except knee jerk complaining. It is easy to complain because all the solutions suck and the whole situation blows. There are two options: do nothing, which if we had done, we would be in a financial catastrophe far worse than we are in now, or you have to do the distasteful thing and bail the financial system out. Guess what? That cost taxpayer dollars and lots of it and will probably end up rewarding a lot of bad behavior. Does it suck? You bet, but that is the reality we are stuck with thanks to Bushanomics. The American people re-elected Bush and made their bed and now we get to sleep in it. Obama inherited this mess from the same republicans and corporate apologists who are griping the loudest now and who undermined all efforts to cap executive pay in the first version of TARP. Once again???RIDICULOUS. The man has been the President for about 40 days. Give him and his team a reasonable chance to succeed. When I listen to Obama, I get the impression he has a profound and deep understanding the depth and scope of this crisis and has demonstrated the leadership to make some really tough calls. He has acted, and acted aggressively and I believe these efforts will bear fruit eventually.

  • Posted By: laissez faire 2009 @ 03/22/2009 8:13:00 AM

    First Obama was being criticized for being too pessimistic about the economy and talking the economy down and for doing too much, acting too aggressively, juggling too many things at once???blah..blah..blah. Now Newsweek claims he is ???underestimating the financial crisis??? and being too optimistic. Did these journalist even listen to Obama???s somber inaugural? Did he not say this would take years to fix? This is absolutely ridiculous. The critics have no alternative plan and really no viable ideas???except knee jerk complaining. It is easy to complain because all the solutions suck and the whole situation blows. There are two options: do nothing, which if we had done, we would be in a financial catastrophe far worse than we are in now, or you have to do the distasteful thing and bail the financial system out. Guess what? That cost taxpayer dollars and lots of it and will probably end up rewarding a lot of bad behavior. Does it suck? You bet, but that is the reality we are stuck with thanks to Bushanomics. The American people re-elected Bush and made their bed and now we get to sleep in it. Obama inherited this mess from the same republicans and corporate apologists who are griping the loudest now and who undermined all efforts to cap executive pay in the first version of TARP. Once again???RIDICULOUS. The man has been the President for about 40 days. Give him and his team a reasonable chance to succeed. When I listen to Obama, I get the impression he has a profound and deep understanding the depth and scope of this crisis and has demonstrated the leadership to make some really tough calls. He has acted, and acted aggressively and I believe these efforts will bear fruit eventually.

  • Posted By: Natalie Rosen @ 03/22/2009 8:12:09 AM

    If Obama came out and said the prospects for recovery any time soon look bleak, as a matter of fact it will last most likely a decade we simply do not know then the media and the public would be screaming from the rafters that Obama does not inspire confidence. You cannot have it both ways. I think the president is doing THE BEST HE CAN and tries to give us hope and tries to be optimistic in the ever so Roosevelt like way. Those he looks to for inspiration Roosevelt and Lincoln are inspirational ones indeed and those examples the President looks will serve us well in turn. It was LIncoln's sagacity and ability to look at issues with heart but with multidimension and it was Roosevelt's optimism kept the country's spirits buoyed. Both these men in different ways saved a nation. What a worse scenario to have an economic debacle and a president with a lemon like personality of a Calvin Coolidge and an impotency of Herbert Hoover. Give Obama a break. We are LUCKY to have such a brilliant man at the helm after what we have had for the past decade and beyond that. Will he have missteps sure...who wouldn't. Look closely what his inept, incompetent, cerebrally inferior ruinous to our nation former president Bush did. He was a plague upon us in every conceivable way. He was treasonous at worst. The American public should NEVER forget and be thankful someone competent and hopeful occupies our highest office. I think, perhaps, our nation lucks out once again.

Reply

Report Abuse

Enter comments if any for reporting abuse