That he will have no more impact on it than W did. Business cycles boom and bust. That is their nature, just like high and low tide. I personally blame one of the Fed chairs for not letting this happen when it should have. The result, a big fat bubble instead of a little bubble. What do we do now? Not much we can do, really. This thing will have to play out. Propping up ANY company or industry is a bad idea. When something has outlived it's usefullness it should die a natural death. GM is half dead because it's unions prevent natural death. Banking sector is half dead because fractional reserve banking, like any kind of Ponzi, has to be allowed to fall when the house of cards gets too high. New players will pick up the cards and start playing again. Our problem is that we want to forgive "working joes" for their ignorance surrounding the business cycle. We prevent them from dying a natural financial death. The government should not be made to pay for financial illiteracy, at the corporate or the personal level. That's why we get do overs. Its called bankruptcy. Now we have a bunch of financial Frankenstiens running around. We can socialize and subsidize these individuals and companies, but in the end they are going to die anyway from financial starvation when money finds a more friendly environment in which to grow. So what is Obama going to do about this economy? Nothing. But if we come out of the valley during his term of office, he sure will get credit for it.
Business cycle is a myth, nothing more than flunctuation of credit & money supply. Nothing natural about it.
The problem is that O, like W - - wont let the losers wash out of the system. They'll do the same thing done in the 30s and extend the length and severity of the current problem. The govt types will be led by their own political prejudices and the recognition that a crisis 'shouldn't be wasted' as an opportunity to expand their own personal power & the security of their own positions. - - As a nation, we borrowed and spent too much on junk that didn't improve our ability to produce and sell to the rest of the world. You don't cure that by borrowing even more, spending on 'make work' govt programs, in hopes that people will start another consumer spending spree. - - -
The annoying thing about how this recession has been treated is that many are referring to it as a "crisis of capitalism" even though it was the government's regulations and the Fed's policies that caused it. Even though they aren't "natural", the fact that the economy can boom and bust thanks to government intervention can still be referred to as a "business cycle".