No one knows if the Dow's bottom is going to be at 6,500 as Nouriel Roubini, Dr. Doom, predicted a few months back. We're all hoping now that he was optimistic.
Two things are certain: The stimulus bill signed by Obama is woefully inadequate and Obama should make clear the comprehensive recovery program that he intends sooner rather than later.
Ask someone on the street what Obama is doing to address the economic crisis left by Bush and he couldn't tell you, but they would like to be inspired very soon.
Nothing catches the imaginations of unemployed American people like a massive jobs program, though the
wrong people (Americans not contributing money to the GOP) would benefit, according to GOP nostrums.
By the way, what Obama has done so far is "exactly wrong," says Newt Gingrich. So, Obama is in the ballpark if Newt hates it, but Obama's message of recovery is not getting through yet.
The American people suspect vaguely that something the last eight years went very wrong; they need a clearer conception that Obama is employing the kitchen sink strategy right now to fix it.
Failing that, the connection that Obama enjoys now with the public as someone whom we are behind will disappear or get tentative and conditional very soon.
Always hated the idea of political leadership, seems antithetical in a democracy, but establishing the politcal psychology of a leader at the controls (though it be illusionary) of a complex machine that is the US-world economy is critical at this moment.
A line of credit for banks to lend? People hate the idea, now matter how necessary it is.
How about a direct line of credit to the American people that they can use to eat, pay rent, fend off foreclosure and raise families? Republicans will hate it, we love it.
via
mal contends
From today's Krugman blog on the return of depression economics:
The news that the spacecraft called Kepler will launch Friday morning brings with it the usual excitement that the search for something new to us in the universe has on those who care about such things.
