Originally Posted By ecdc <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/business/16assess.html" target="_blank">http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07...ess.html</a> Obama and the Democrats passed financial reform yesterday, largely praised by economists as a good start to solving a lot of our problems. But Americans, with the attention span of a gnat, don't seem to care. We want politicians to do what they promised. Obama has - much more successfully than any President in recent history - and people don't like it. Again, we get what we deserve when politicians lie and don't follow through.
Originally Posted By Princessjenn5795 I am glad this passed...it is a good first step and will do some good, especially in the consumer protection areas. As far as Obama goes, he has done more in his year and a half in office than a lot of presidents have done in either 4 or 8 years. If you haven't read it yet, I recommend you read The Promise: President, Year One by Jonathan Alter. It is a really good look at what he did and did not accomplish during his 1st year. The dids far exceed the did nots.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt I hear you ecdc, and I understand that Obama wants to take advantage of the majority situation in Congress to get these big bills passed. However, his accomplishments don't change the fact that a large segment of the working population is unemployed or has had their wages severely cut. I don't think it's completely unreasonable for people to hold Obama's feet to the fire until they start to see their incomes increase. This excerpt from the article says it all: "In Mr. Obama’s case, people are up in arms over the economy. Just 40 percent of Americans now approve of Mr. Obama’s handling of the economy, the CBS News poll found. More than half said he was spending too little time on the economy. In one of the most striking findings, nearly two-thirds said the president’s economic policies had no effect on them personally — just 13 percent said they had helped them."
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>I don't think it's completely unreasonable for people to hold Obama's feet to the fire until they start to see their incomes increase.<< What should he be doing that he isn't? He's got half the country saying he needs to "do something" about the economy. He's got the other half saying he needs to stay the hell away from private enterprise and let the "invisible hand" do its thing. So, what's the answer? We've gotten into this mindset that if the economy is all rosy, the sitting president gets all the credit. If it sucks, the sitting president gets all the blame. But is that realistic? Isn't it more complicated than that?
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>He's got half the country saying he needs to "do something" about the economy. He's got the other half saying he needs to stay the hell away from private enterprise and let the "invisible hand" do its thing<< Actually, let me correct myself. He's got half the country saying he needs to "do something" about the economy, and that very SAME half says he's a socialist that wants to kill private enterprise and expand the government.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt "What should he be doing that he isn't?" Good question. I support this President, but the sad fact is that the dilemma we're in probably won't be rectified before the end of his term no matter what he does. I guess what I meant by my comment is that the electorate will never be completely satisfied with Obama until the economy does a 180. It'd be interesting to see Obama's poll numbers if the unemployment rate were to drop below 5%.
Originally Posted By Sport Goofy << It'd be interesting to see Obama's poll numbers if the unemployment rate were to drop below 5%. >> That would certainly be interesting, but it's also not possible. The cards for Obama were dealt years before he took office. I said many times during the 2008 campaign that neither candidate for President was likely to survive a first term given the horrible economic conditions they would be facing. While I'm not thrilled with some of Obama's compromise solutions on the stimulus, health care reform, and no financial regulation, I don't think there is anything he can do to turn around the economy substantially in the next couple of years. We still have a period of deflation to work through that will be very painful in order to get our financial house in order. That doesn't bode well for incumbents, no matter what they do or don't do.
Originally Posted By Princessjenn5795 Well, hopefully there is progress soon and Obama gets reelected because if a Republican gets elected the economy will nose dive again and things will be even worse than they were before.
Originally Posted By Mr X My biggest fear is that Romney gets the nomination. I feel he is capable of taking out Obama, given the right circumstances (as SG points out). However, if the Teaparty still has a stranglehold over the Republican Party, they'll reject Romney in the preliminary rounds and offer up someone unelectable. Even if the economy IS still a mess, I can't see America being insane enough to elect a Palin or a Huckabee type.
Originally Posted By dshyates I think Romney will have a lot of problems carrying the south, which for the past 2 decades have been a shoe in for the GOP. Even as low as Obama's numbers are the fractured state of the GOP will help him. As of now the GOP doesn't have a viable candidate.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>While I'm not thrilled with some of Obama's compromise solutions on the stimulus, health care reform, and no financial regulation, I don't think there is anything he can do to turn around the economy substantially in the next couple of years.<< Bingo. This is what I was getting at. I don't agree with everything Obama's done and my OP wasn't meant to be a questionless defense of him. He's too invested in Tim Geithner for my liking and not invested enough in Elizabeth Warren. But the larger point is Americans are so hard-wired to hate their politicians and be cynical about civics and government, that we've doomed ourselves. Imagine what we could accomplish if we rallied around our President and worked together to solve problems? But we can't even agree that Mel Gibson is a scumbag in this country without making it about left and right. Everyone says politicians don't keep their promises, right? Well, by and large, Obama's kept his, amassing the most impressive legislative record in generations. So what do the people want? They want Obama and Biden to transform into Mr. Incredible and Frozone, fly to the gulf, and personally stop the well leak with laser beams from their eyes. Not, maybe, focus on legislation to prevent it from happening again. Our expectations and demands for Presidents are absurd. We've given away most of our power to big business and corporations, and then we wonder why nothing gets done.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>But the larger point is Americans are so hard-wired to hate their politicians and be cynical about civics and government, that we've doomed ourselves. Imagine what we could accomplish if we rallied around our President and worked together to solve problems?<< Oh, and to address the obvious retort: Yes, many of us were cynical about Bush and didn't rally around him. Because Bush wasn't Obama. Two different guys who did different things with different intentions achieving different levels of success. Imagine that! Bush was incompetent and pursued an agenda that was harmful to the nation, especially the working class. Obama not so much. Sorry if that reality isn't "fair" to conservatives.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Add to that the fact that we DID rally around Bush right after 9/11. He had approval ratings of something like 90% for a little bit, meaning plenty of liberals were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. He kept that when he went into Afghanistan (since that made some sense), and only lost it when he went into Iraq, which didn't. On the other hand, have conservatives EVER given Obama the benefit of the doubt? Not since day one. I don't even think they would if we had another terrorist attack, as they've been primed to blame it on him if it happens.
Originally Posted By DAR I for one am happy that this has passed. I mean is there a better more qualified and honest entity to make sure our finances are being properly taken care of. I mean look at the bang up job they've already done. <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/sec-pornography-employees-spent-hours-surfing-porn-sites/story?id=10452544" target="_blank">http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/sec-...10452544</a>
Originally Posted By fkurucz ^^FWIW the Glass Steagall act worked like a charm, until it was repealed so that "free markets" could do their "thing" (and they did, oh did they ever)
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Exactly. The fact that some in the SEC surfed for porn does not compute to "therefore, we don't need the financial regulations we had for 70 years that did a really good job of staving off exactly what we've seen in recent history."
Originally Posted By DAR Well they weren't doing their jobs. But again I'm labeled as wrong because I don't think that the federal government, the one group in this country that probably needs to be watched the closest is setting the rules. And don't give me that they are watched when we elect new representatives because that really hasn't helped.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt "But the larger point is Americans are so hard-wired to hate their politicians and be cynical about civics and government, that we've doomed ourselves." I guess the question then is why are we so "hard-wired"? You certainly can't say that being skeptical of our political leaders is unwarranted.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox <<But again I'm labeled as wrong because I don't think that the federal government, the one group in this country that probably needs to be watched the closest is setting the rules.>> I'm not labeling you as "wrong" for that reason, DAR. I'm labeling you as "wrong" because you voted for the Republicans who allowed it to happen. Bush and his Republican-controlled Congress created the deficit and amassed more debt in six years than all of the previous administrations combined. Bush and his Republican-controlled Congress allowed the SEC to become the toothless bureaucracy it is today. Only under Democratic control in the WH and Congress has this agency come under scrutiny. You keep picking the wrong fights, DAR. You keep backing the team that put us in this gigantic mess in the first place. Handing the reins of government back to the GOP would be suicide for this nation. They created this mess and they have absolutely NO INTEREST in fixing it. Their multinational corporate masters are in control and have no desire of relinquishing it.
