Conservative is Correct
Wait, what?
Yes, a conservative is right about something. I am talking about Ben Stein. He occasionally gets pretty nutty about what he thinks, but he hit this topic right on the nose.
He said that the biggest problem with the market today is the fear fueling its downfall. When Barack Obama was elected, he himself said that the people had elected hope over fear. The problem is, he has only used fear to get whatever bills necessary passed in order to save the economy. I am not stupid enough to believe that this is not urgent; haste is important in this situation. However, Obama is only showing the bad side of the issue to get what he wants. As Ben Stein put it, 92% of Americans still do have jobs, and more than 90% of loans are being paid off on time. Those are the numbers you need to look at. If the American people weren’t panicking, then in all honesty, we would still be relatively safe.
That becomes a big difference between Barack Obama and FDR. Roosevelt always had a confident and calming nature, and it instilled confidence back into the public.
1fred m
wrote on 9 March 2009 at 10:11
I don’t completely agree. Simple optimism, alone, will not pull us out of this mess very quickly. Government action is necessary due to the magnitude of the problem. But we MUST believe too. If we all go into a financial shell the trouble will last longer.
2Ibk g
wrote on 9 March 2009 at 23:45
I don’t agree with that either. The basic sentiment, yes. Hope is good. Optimism is good. But here is the problem that President Obama faces:
1. the American public nowadays has the attention span of the length of a commercial and
2. the ‘Hope’ voters need to realize he is not the messiah who can undo 8 years of Republic economic policy in the time it takes to run said commerial.
Hope is a wonderful emotion and great (and even necessary to have,) but hope has to be grounded in some reality to work. I don’t believe the American public at large has dealt with the last 8 years at all and as long as people don’t, they are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. I see too many people who voted for Bush (or didn’t vote for him, but were silent when he got ‘installed’ in the White House and were equally quiet when he took nearly everything away that makes this nation so great). They were silent, thereby allowing the Bush Administration to go ahead with disemboweling the Constitution and human rights. Then, when the economy tanked as a result of years of Republican mismanagement, they simply switched to ‘hope’ instead. And they will be the people that will turn on President Obama if he doesn’t deliver in a minute and a half.
People need to take a look at what got us here, not just in theory, but how every one of us who overspent, had credit card debt, bought stuff they couldn’t afford with home equiyt lines of credit, bought houses they couldn’t afford but gambled on being able to keep in a rising real estate market – how every one who was silent in the face of all the abuses of the Bush administration – contributed to the mess we are in now. Realizing that if you vote for a guy who cuts and cuts and cuts taxes while at the same time spending money we didn’t have on a war to please his daddy has CONSEQUENCES. Which will take years, if not decades, to covercome. The Republicans are smart. They got us into this mess and now all they have to do is pretend it wasn’t them. After all, with the attention span of the average voter, all they see is that the economy is bad under Obama.
He MUST remind people that it will take a good long while to get out of this. Hope and optimism, yes, but reality about the situation and taking responsibility – double yes.