mikey

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/bu...my/22view.html


It won't be a decade.

Once Mr. Obama leaves the White House in 4 years, it will "Moning in America", as Reagan liked to say.

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BelichickFan

I've said this before, Barry is amazingly negative compared to his campaign. Yes, the "truth" is needed to some extent but so is a positive attitude. All he's going is exacerbating the situation while lowering expectations to a ridiculous level. This is also how he'll "create" 3 million jobs. Even if we lose 1 million he'll say "things were so bad we'd have lost 4 million without my programs".

Mr. sourpuss, that's his name.

Patters

I think Obama is being negative for two reasons:
(1) He's trying to be upfront and honest. The fact that he's eliminating various Bush-era accounting gimmicks to hide the actual deficit shows he wants government to be more honest. He's also taken several steps towards transparency, though much remains to be done.
(2) In order to pursue his legislative agenda, he has to keep the motivation for change alive. If Americans become less worried, there will be more resistance to change and greater support for the status quo. I think it's smart politics on his part.

Thus, it seems to me that honesty is the best policy.

BelichickFan

Don't forget that he's lowering expectations to the point that anything looks like a success. We can argue about the others but this is pretty much certain.

Patters

Yeah, that's true, but there are a lot of people out there, such as Paul Volcker, who think that things will get worse. I think the biggest challenge we face is that we have little control over the economies in the rest of the world, on which we're dependent for both borrowing and selling our products.

Obama's honesty and bluntness on the state of the economy is politically advantageous, including for the reason you mentioned.

wistahpatsfan

If he was talking to frightened little children, I would expect him to sugarcoat the poor outlook in the immediate future (next year or two) and stroke our little foreheads and whisper "there, there, now...don't worry. Uncle Barak will protect you"...

You're not used to having the truth be told. You've been counting on the rosy, optimistic pleadings of the whores on CNBC who will be crushed if we don't trust the market. Guess what...the market can't be trusted.

BelichickFan

You can tell the truth and still be optimistic - you know, like Barry was during the election - or you can tell the truth and be a dour sourpuss. Like he is now.

IcyPatriot

IMO Obama has an early uneven track record. It appears he's growing into the role of President. My intuition still leads me to believe he wants to go down in history as one of the greatest Presidents in history. He will need help along the way, he will need to learn who are his allies and who are his masked enemies right in his own party. In the long run I think he will do more good than he will make errors. Until I see otherwise I think he's trying ... we'll see. Many other countries have bigger problems ... negativity is a horrible disease and we have a few in the forum who have a terminal case of it.

wistahpatsfan

Maybe he had no idea how deep the problems ran until he became privy to the truth after innauguration?

Myself, I've always favored the straight truth from those in the know. I like being talked to like a big boy. I still don't know whether what BO's doing is right or not (my gut says there's nothing government can do right) but I think it's way too early to tell and that he's got more info than he can tell. His switch in style tells me that we're in for a very long stretch of recession.

I've done everything I can to be prepared and I know my family can weather this out. It's my neighbors I'm worried about. Some very bright and good people I know are in deep crap (in their mind) and I think most of them will be experiencing a change in lifestyle. For some of them, it will mean leaving their McMansion with 2 extra bedrooms and selling one or more of their three cars, Harleys, snowmobiles, timeshares, ...things are going to change a lot for a lot of people. We've got a long way to go.