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Barack
Obama could be ranked as the American president who was
elected to office not only with the goodwill of all
Americans but also that of the rest of the world. Race
no doubt boosted his popularity in most countries
outside America, but even traditional anti-American
baiters entertained sincere hopes that he would be a
good American president.
Yet,
all concerned knew that this wonderful man was walking
into a deep abyss from which escape would be extremely
difficult. It was an abyss, trillions of dollars deep,
the scaling of which there was no sure answer.
Six
weeks in office and President Obama is in that trillions
of dollars deep hellhole which is getting deeper and
only his resounding rhetoric, sincerity and the
confidence the people still continue to place in him,
keeps him going.
Crashing markets
Obama
magic has worked with the American polity at the
election, but not with American finance and the economy
after he took office. Every day stock market reports and
other reports on the economy are damning. It has been
noted that on the day he was sworn in as president, the
stock market dropped drastically. When he signed the
Economic Recovery Package, the biggest ever in American
history, the Dow dropped by 300 points and his massive
bank and housing rescue plans have fared no better.
True,
it is only six weeks since he inherited the worse hit
American economy which has adversely affected all major
world markets. The trillions he has pumped into the
American economy do not seem to have the desired
effects.
No
short cuts
Obama,
political and economic analysts say, has not been
playing for short term market kick backs. He has
publicly proclaimed that it will be a long, hard road
ahead and it would take years to recover. The number of
unemployed has risen from 7.6 per cent to 8.1 per cent
and in February the number of unemployed increased by
851,000. Reports say that Obama continues to enjoy the
confidence of the American public despite strong
criticism levelled against him by the Republicans,
particularly those on the far right. But the new
President has shown no signs of panic.
Critics say that over confidence could mean disaster.
The case of John Mc Cain, Obama's Republican rival in
the presidential race is cited. Mc Cain had during the
campaign declared that the 'fundamentals of the American
economy are strong' only to see within days the collapse
of major American financial institutions burying Mc
Cain's presidential hopes with them.
Obama's strategy after taking office has been to
candidly declare that the economy will get worse but
express confidence that it will recover. But is this
rational approach sufficient to boost the confidence of
the American public? Public confidence or the lack of it
is said to be a main cause of the economic recession.
Lack of confidence
Former
President Bill Clinton who did not exhibit lack of
confidence even in his worst moments in office - and he
had plenty of such moments - is reported to have said
that President Obama should sound much more positive and
confident about his economic recovery plans.
Barack
Obama, however has in his short stay been able to
impress the American public with his actions - pumping
in massive amounts of finance into the beleaguered
sections of the economy while being willing to admit his
errors such as his now famous admission of 'I have
screwed it up'... But is this sufficient to pull the
country out of one of the worst economic disasters it
has faced in recent times?
Obama way
An
American journalist Jonathan Alter who has associated
with Obama for over four years writing in Newsweek says:
'He (Obama) has a firm grasp of the psychological and
substantive challenges of presidency. Equally important,
his 2008 campaign proved that he has a superior sense of
timing. He knows that now is not the moment to
cheerlead, not when the financial players are lying
dazed on the field. There will be a time for that, when
the banks have been 'restructured' and credit starts
flowing again.'
Psychology obviously plays a significant role in
overcoming a 21st Century recession. Watching charts of
collapsing stock indices daily on TV, certainly have
negative impacts in confidence building. Even in far
away countries like Sri Lanka where world recession has
had little impact, news and commentaries on
international TV channels on collapsing stock markets in
the West paint a picture of gloom and doom.
This
week on BBC's Hardtalk a former British Commerce
Minister Digby Jones specifically told the interviewer
Stephen Sackur that these daily commentaries in the
media could have negative impacts on the markets.
Roosevelt strategy
Obama's special kind of self confidence, it has been
pointed out differs markedly from the 'cocky Texan kind
of confidence' that George W. Bush played, although many
a time the Bush cockiness produced results. Obama's
confidence, commentators have said, is of the kind of
Franklin D. Roosevelt who rode out the biggest
depression
America
had faced.
Roosevelt had based his strategy on 'bold, persistent
experimentation.' Obama had sounded very much
Roosveltian when he spoke of his strategy on economic
recovery recently to a group of journalists. He had
said: 'We will do what works. It's going to take time to
lay out every aspect of this plan and there are going to
be many certain aspects of any plan that needs
re-evaluation and there have to be some experimentation
- if that doesn't work, then you do something else.'
Despite the placid composure of the new President within
six weeks there is mounting anger against his
strategies. The Lexington Column in The Economist (March
7) says: 'There is mounting fury among centrists as well
as conservatives about Mr. Obama's budget, with its
mixture of tax hikes for the wealthy, ambitious plans
for regulating green house gases and extending
government's role in health care.. Many former
supporters worry that Obama is treating the economic
crisis rather as George Bush treated September 11, a
convenient excuse for pursuing a long held ideological
agenda.'
Sadhu Obama
Despite the American economy reeling and now the
opposition opening up full throttle against his recovery
plans, Obama appears to maintain the equanimity of an
Indian sadhu in meditation. Newsweek quotes him telling
publicly in Florida: 'I'm not going to make any
excuses.. If the stuff doesn't work out and the people
don't feel like I've led the country in the right
direction, then you could have a new president.'
Like
him or not, he is indeed a President hard to find - in
any country.
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