Obama has done a fine job on almost everything.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

Obama has done a fine job on almost everything.

The transition was excellent. (The snags are not a big deal--everyone has them.) The international stuff is rolling out nicely. The polls are good. He got TARRP II passed.

But he was primarily elected to do one thing: improve the economy. (He ran on may things but the election was decided by economic concern.)

And, unfortunately, team Obama has missed the mark on the situation by a wide margin.

I perceive the biggest problem as this: People run for president wanting to do things they have thought about for years. The possibility of durable depression is something that stands in the way of other things... an unwanted, unasked for headache. And it doesn't seem to be something Obama really "gets." He gets a lot but nobody gets everything. People have their own modes of thought and analysis. (FDR had been managing the existing depression for years as governor of New York. His presidency was understood to be entirely about the depression the day he announced his candidacy. Obama did not seek the office specifically to deal with the depression... it just came along.)

And, near as I can tell, President Obama has heard what he wants to hear which is that there is very little he can do except react to the irresistible momentum of economic events. (Anyone would want to hear that. The alternative is to have no choice but to put everything else on the back burner, perhaps for the entirety of your presidency.)

It's easy to find economists to offer that view and if one accepts that view then it allows us to operate in palliative mode... seeking to soften the blow of the inevitable, rather than trying to prevent it.

Economics is a softer science than we like to think and economists tend to over-compensate by being 100% about hard numbers and reluctant to offer firm predictions. (With good reason. Predicting in economics is even harder than predicting weather because the weather won't change based on your predictions, or change based on what people do to anticipate it--the rain doesn't care if you took an umbrella to work. Markets do.)

In their effort to be ultra-rigorous economists tend to under-play aspects of dynamic mass-psychology that are hard or impossible to quantify and predict, even though those psychological factors can be determinative and in economic crises usually are determinative.

That's why most economists have been, and will continue to be, one step behind in this mess. It's not very mathematically rigorous to end an equation with, "...and at this point everyone goes bat-shit crazy and our assumptions or rational self-interest become less and less useful."

It's a damn shame... Obama's a good man and if he recognized that immense and dramatic economic action could save countless millions of people around the world and prevent a few wars I have no doubt he would take up the task. He would recognize the moral imperative.

Even if you leave the welfare of the American people entirely out of it (which no American president would want to do, of course) the consequences throughout the world of a global depression are so dire that it would be our top national priority even if the US economy was somehow healthy and insulated.

I am not angry. I am sad.

I don't know that anyone would have gotten this right. It's nothing particular about Obama. Even FDR would have probably missed the mark. What FDR did was not all that dramatic given the extraordinary nature of the circumstances.

So I don't really criticize Obama for this within the range of what we can rationally expect of a president. He's smart and good and skillful. I just wish our species psychology was a little better at dealing with big crises whose solutions run counter to our deepest evolved intuitions about how economics ought to work.

[NRaleighLiberal]

1. After listening to endless analyses of our economic situation and the

various options to "fix"it, it is clear NO ONE gets it or knows what to do. Even on This American Life, today, there was an episode on the problem - and their conclusion is that we are in the midst of an experiment that's never been run before. There is no control to test a way forward on. So...it is pick something, give it a whirl and hope like hell it works.

[IGotAName]

3. Which was what FDR did.

Try something, if it doesn't work own up to it quickly and try something else.

[Captain Hilts]

11. And that is nearly an exact quotation from FDR. nt

[snowbear]

2. It's official.

.
.

"Obama doesn't really "get" the economic crisis and isn't terribly interested in it."

........You are nuts K&H.


-

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

5. I edited that over-statement before reading your reply.

It represents something real, but was hyperbolically phrased.

[Posteritatis]

13. I'm half convinced economics is just sorcery anyway

There's a whole lot of people this-is-why-this-happeneding, and a whole lot of people all-you-have-to-doing, but if situations like this were so easy to comprehend it'd be easier to nip them in the bud.

Of course, I'd rather a president in office who knows one's actually happening, regardless of whether or not the White House can effectively do something about it, than the previous guy, who went out as often as not talking about how strong and stable and healthy the economy is. I'm just happy to see a president who isn't chiefly about denial.

[AtomicKitten]

4. This is a work in progress and yours a preemptive passive-aggressive whine.

On edit ----> My above comment based on your pre-edited statement: "Obama doesn't really "get" the economic crisis and isn't terribly interested in it."

[FrenchieCat]

12. Passive-agressive whine about what Obama is doing has been K&H's

schtick for quite sometime......ever since he got on board after the primaries.

Do a search. You'll find some beautes! All of them wrong, though.

[cottonseed]

6. Too many people in power are free market fanatics.

They just can't see another way.

Reminds me of this story out of Italy of scientists convinced "fertilizing" the oceans in hopes of propagating CO2 eating organisms. I'm sure in that scientific circle it seems like the only way, that their plan to deposit iron in the world's oceans is the only way to combat CO2 and global warming. When, the simple fact is that the best way to do this is to just cut the damn C02 emissions.

Works the same way in Washington, New York, and in the communities of the wealthy and powerful. The free market unfettered capitalism isn't even considered the problem. Income disparity is just an unfortunate effect of what they believe is the greatest wealth generating system ever created. They are wrong and they don't know it. Unfortunately for us, at the moment, they're making all the calls.

[BlooInBloo]

7. The betrayal doth wound mine own heart, and wound it deeply.

[doc03]

8. According to all my Faux News junkie friends

he has made nothing but mistakes so far and he will destroy the nation. I have learned he is going to take all our guns ammo will cost $500 a box. He is going to spend our SS and we will all starve to death when we retire. The blacks are going to take over the country. He is going to release all the terrorists from Gitmo and give them bombs to blow use up. He is going to run up a deficit that we can never pay back. Inflation going to go through the roof and we will need a wheel barrel to carry the money to buy loaf of bread. we're doomed, doomed I tell ya. :scared:

[Life Long Dem]

9. He said he inherited the economic problems there.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=inherited&r=66

inherited 2. To receive or take over from a predecessor: The new administration inherited the economic problems of the last four years.

[ebdarcy]

10. It's been eleven days. The fuck-up that is our current economic situation

has been brewing for years.

Obama doesn't only hear what he wants to hear. That is not part of his MO. That said, he is obviously going to make the decisions that he thinks best. Hopefully, he makes the right decisions.