I don’t know if I am the only one noticing, but doesn’t the folk around Obama seem to be taciturn, and maybe in disagreement of the manner in which he has so far addressed foreign policy and the economy? I mean in his own administration. First the Vice President statement that "there's still a 30 percent chance we're going to get it wrong." Then there were the two days of bumbling starring Tim Geithner on the Hill. The former New York Federal Reserve president, who looked the opposite way of Wall Street and all the breakneck and feckless behavior that has our economy where it is today; as well as the man who had a major role in letting Lehman Brothers fail, is looking more each day as incompetent in his ability to both make any decisive economic action, let alone serve as the point guard for Obama's economic proposals.
Now I won’t lie this at Obama’s feat, since the only part he had in it as an enabler was signing that first bail out bill. But as I have indicated above, I can at Mr. Geithner. What I can do is with Obama is study his plans, which seem to me a bunch of Malarkey, especially for a man so insightful with respect to history. Geithner basically threw the Obama administration under the bus basically asserting that they had no plan in place for the economy – which is really Geithner’s job description. Just like it seemed when The Vice President said what he said. I just wonder if Obama, didn’t expect this, seeing we knew whit Biden thought of Jones two years ago?
This is one reason I, as in a prior post by comment suggested and agreed with several readers that the current President is more akin to FDR to me than Lincoln. I would have hoped that this revisiting of the great depression would have been coupled with examine the position of Hans Morgenthau. Sixty years ago Morgenthau published Politics Among Nations, which systematized the notion of political realism. It was based on his experiences as the treasury Secretary for FDR. Morgenthau admitted that the New Deal approach of spending did not work and was short term; that no amount of spending at the government level helped in the long run. He admitted:
"We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong ... somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises ... I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started ... And an enormous debt to boot!" [Source]
I have basically decided to respectfully disagree with the Obama approach. I was down before any plan or non plan was presented. But what got me was what he said during his economic press conference February 9, 2009 “At this particular moment, with the private sector so weakened by this recession, the federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back to life.” He had said something similar a month ago on January 8, 2009. It was the government that got us in this mess. It will only be solved by us on the ground, by saving, buying from one another and insisting that they stop shelling out loot for the sake of spending. It took us years, decades to get into this and most likely ten years to get us out of this mess - if the FDR years are any teacher.
As of now I expect it will be us on the ground, the foot solders that feel the brunt of our economic woes. For they seem to be jockeying for position in the Obama administration, and doing so on two fronts: the economy and foreign policy. Secretary Clinton is not even in the dog pit yet, but best believe she will soon. We all suspected that the
