Why are people thinking Obama can magically create jobs out of this air.

"Thin air" . . . the expression you wanted was "thin air."

You are correct.I guess once you hit the enter ---or ask question button that you can't edit your title.I did see it but it was to late.I just registered yesterday so I am totally sure that you cannot edit the title.

You can edit it within the period of time in which you can edit your initial post. You must have posted this and then gone about your business for a period of time during which your opportunity to edit expired. I believe that answer is correct because i recently started a thread, noticed an error in the title, and hit edit on the initial post, and was able to correct the error. That was within a few minutes.

People are ridiculous. I can still see Mr. Obama standing at the podium, making it as clear as he could that we were in a big, ugly mess and the recovery would take some time, it's not going to happen overnight, it's a tough hill to climb, etc. He warned us time and time again that this was going to be a long and slow uphill battle and yet, here we are, people yelling and screaming and blaming him because it's not happening as fast as we'd all like it to. It's very hard out here for many people right now who've lost their jobs, their homes, and they know he didn't put us in this mess but yet, they blame him for it all the same.

There is nothing thin about air with the smell of money in it...

Mr. Obama first propped up the very people who choked on all the profit they took out of this people... Then he primed the pump in the old Keynsian expecation that a little money would go a long way... He does not understand who are the villians of this story, and he relies upon others for his understanding of economics who are part of that class that has teken so long their profit from our lives... Marx accepted that High profits we synonymous with glut, meaning depression... What he did was to ensure the profit of wall street, and expecting once again that the people of America would bear the burden of profits made through taxes... Capitalism has been on life supports for a long time...It takes to much as a parsite, and threatens to kill itself with its host... If Mr. Obama had wanted to do something remarkable, he would have eliminated the bankers, liquidated them all; drafted those he needed and thrown the rest in reducation/death camps.... If America cannot live without Credit, let the government loan dircetly to the people... As it stands, the government must borrow from the rich the very money it loans to the rich to loan to us.... The course they follow leads to inflation, which is a way of robbing from people on fixed incomes, and it will lead eventually to bankruptcy and bankruptcy leads to revolution as it did in our revolution, The English revolution, the French and Russian revolutions... Obama is beating a dead horse... The people have been robbed of the capital of many generations, of their social security, of their national security and their hope... You do not put out the fire that is brewing in this country with a half a cup of pissed on money thrown at it from Washington D C..... If we will not be slaves we will take this land back from the rich and the government and establish a new form of government with the same goals as the last, but with better means of achieving those goals...

Sure it is a big ugly mess and one that capital and finance have been working up to for years... The answer is not to prop them up and give them the support of the good faith and credt of the American people, but to take them individually and as a group and wring every spare cent out of them... They took too much out of us, more value than the land and labor could create, and they have done so for many years.... The economy is supposed to support the government, and how many times since the last great depression has the government been forced to support the economy and collect the money out of working people??? Don't look now government; but with jobs gone over seas with capital there are fewer and fewer legs supporting more and more weight of retirees, of the non working, of government unable or unwilling to seek justice for workers, of capitalism bleeding them as the price of employment, of unions even, which are supposed to help them... The thing is like a tarantula carrying a potatoe, and the potatoe is too much to carry...

At some point, the people of this country will reach the conclusion out of necessity that they have no reason to support a government and economy that does not support them in return...

If Mr. Obama had come out swinging, as was suggested above, just how much support do you suppose he would have gotten? From whom? If he'd told the banks, the auto companies, Wall St., the GOP to kiss his ass, how much further along do you suppose the country would be in our recovery? What so many refuse to recognize is, this was and is a lose/lose situation for him. This is the very reason why I did not want him to run in the first place. You could see this nightmare coming four years ago but of course, it's much worse than any of us imagined.

Whatever he does, he will be vilified for it and there are factions everywhere just waiting for their own personal opportunity to slit his throat. Racist are everywhere, in every industry, in every corporation, in every political branch, and it doesn't matter which road he chooses, for them it's the wrong road. They do not want this administration to succeed and will do whatever they must to prevent it. And that includes selling you, me and the baby down the river.

All the President can do is try and make the right choices for as many Americans as possible and I believe that's what he's trying to do—whether they're even capable in such a vicious climate of realizing it or not. And as he said, standing at that podium, "It's not going to happen overnight. It will take time."

You know; there is such a thing as a president being a great educator... He should know the facts, and he could spell them out and let the people decide.. We needed universal health care...I don't think we got **** for health care; but if no one wanted to touch that hot potatoe, they could have come up with some proposals and let the people choose the best, or none at all... What they do not want to give people is the idea that they can decide issues on their own...It is just like the illegal powers taken by Mr. Bush... Mr. Obama will not give them back... once any of them have power you can forget any give back...Giving the power back to the people is something they will never willingly do...

I guess that's your take on it. I see "letting the people decide" on something as monumental as health care reform as a long, drawn-out, never ending process where every tomdickandharry would insist upon their moment to bask in the glare of tv lights and be heard. Would we vote on a choice of proposals? And just how would such proposals even make it to ballot without a state-by-state brawl? People bitched that Obama was spending too much time on it as it were. How much bitching would there be now if the fight was still going on? And for what? Just for health care in this country to end up more convoluted, more confusing, watered down, manipulated and more meaningless than ever before? If they'd gone about it the way you suggest, we'd be no closer to reform today than we were three years ago. At least now we are indeed a hell of a lot closer. Sick babies and their families are protected. I'm all for that.

Lets be honest.
Part of what hurt Obama was his pledge that his stimulus bill, if passed, would keep unemployment under 8% (it was 7.2% when he was sworn in).
His stimulus package passed, and unemployment went up to just over 10%, and its still over 9% now.

He set the bar, and since he didnt live up to his own words, he is now paying for it.

His taking too much time on it was the result of wanting congress to take all the blame, and not putting any of his own credibility on the line, which he would have done in a thousand different ways if he were a man and not a tool of the party and of the rich... I would not care if there were a brawl... People should learn to fight, and what is more, put their vote into action the way they should, weigh the facts and live with the majority, if that is what they want... Most people are living in a damned dream world... If they reach the point where they end medicade and medicare, if they reach the point where private insurance can no long pay the bills of all the people who cannot afford insurance the whole medical supply system would fall over like a row of dominos... All the people who now cannot afford treatment and are treated anyway would be dying in the street, and the possibility of epidemics sweeping the country would fly...We have shot our unity all to hell... Plenty of people are good and happy with people dying and they will pray for their souls... They don't understand that health care is something we will all have, or none of us will have... People should learn to put their hatred of humanity aside, but if they were to make the wrong move, and they knew it was the wrong move, and they had democracy; the could straighten out easily enough... If the democrats get burned again they will not revisit the issue again... And then public health will go by the way side..

I agree that he is paying for it; but it would take more than some piddling little stimulous to fix capitalism in America... He fixed Wall Street... Profits there were not hurt to bad... That was the mistake... That bunch ought to have been sent death camping...

I don't think the President actually thought that a lot of companies would downsize and then later state that the actually had no plans to ever re-hire back up to the former lever in a lot of cases.Nor did he factor in the order levels dropping dramatically as the money tightened because of the population fear that they could also get let go or get laid off themselves.
But the bad thing that no one seems to want to talk about is that Bush screwed up the economy so bad during his eight years and after taking into account all of the good paying manufacturing jobs that were lost due to outsourcing that even if every company that has people laid off in this Country right now called everybody back that the unemployment rate would only drop to about 7.5 which isn't that good.

Bush could not kill it, and Obama can't save it... Capitalism has always been a success so long as markets and resources and pigeons were in endless supply... All wars are wars for markets... All wars destroy essential resources, and the piegeons essential to markets, and that results in self reliant populations that close their doors as markets, and open them as marketeers... Capitalism is dying, and has been on life support for over 70 years.... It is a failure, and the only question is: Will we let it destroy us, and turn us into slaves or corpses so that it can live for another day...

Fido wrote "Capitalism is dying, and has been on life support for over 70 years.... It is a failure, and the only question is: Will we let it destroy us, and turn us into slaves or corpses so that it can live for another day..."

What do you recommend to replace capitalism?

BBB

It's not even that. A couple of his economic advisers ran a model which was based on certain GDP and employment numbers from 2008. They came up with a target unemployment number that reflected that. Then, those numbers were revised downward - far down - and the model wasn't even close to accurate. Yet somehow, this turns into an Obama 'promise' to keep employment below 8%, as if anyone could promise such a thing.

MM knows all this, I've explained it to him at least twice, but he doesn't care.

Cycloptichorn

Anything but free enterprise... It is because capital is free to do what it wants that the people must be so controled.... Government should govern the economy or, as Mr. Obama is finding, it will govern the government... Consider that this country was once all commonwealth, and if much of that wealth was put into private hands it still must support the population... When those with the wealth invest abroad and will not support the government that defends their wealth abroad it is certain that something must give... When the poor are aqueezed to keep the rich from parting with any wealth the number of poor grows, and wealth becomes concentrated... If there were capitalism and then wealth were taxed to return what was once common property to the common wealth there would be no want of people trying to better themselves and rise above the average... We have to ask: Long after we have discovered that hereditary government did not work can we still justify hereditary wealth when such wealth dictates the whole direction of government??? The pressure on wealth should be relentless, and it must always be under pressure to prove it is doing a public good to be justified...

We presume a good to private property and private wealth that is idealistic, but no where in evidence... Let capital show its value in the good it does... Demand that no corporation be founded within the United States that is not willing to prove it exists for a pure public purpose, that it exists for good first, and profit second...If primitives savages could govern their economy so can we... Capitalism is anarchy, denying all government, accepting only government with the caveat that it will find its way around it, and master those who attempt to master it... Will we be governed by economic anarchy in the expecation that good will result when it is so obvious that good does not result??? We know greed is a vice... Not one person in a thousand would seriously argue otherwise... For us as a society to accept as true what we know individually to be false is insanity... Greed is a vice because no good comes of it...

Your description makes me wonder if we have something in common. I got to know Michael Harrington in San Francisco in the 1970s when I worked with him to establish Democratic Socialists of America in the Bay Area. I had great admiration for him after he wrote The Other America: Poverty in the United States, a book that had an impact on the Kennedy administration, and on Lyndon B. Johnson's subsequent War on Poverty. Sadly, he died much too young.

Who was Michael Harrington?

Michael Harrington
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Michael Harrington
Chairman of Democratic Socialists of America
In office - 1982–1989
Born February 24, 1928
St. Louis, Missouri
Died July 31, 1989
Spouse(s) Stephanie Gervis
Children Alexander Harrington,
Edward Michael "Ted" Harrington III
Occupation Politician
Author
Religion Atheist

Edward Michael "Mike" Harrington (February 24, 1928 — July 31, 1989) was an American democratic socialist, writer, political activist, professor of political science, radio commentator and founder of the Democratic Socialists of America.

Michael Harrington was born in St. Louis, Missouri on February 24, 1928. He attended St. Louis University High School, where he was a classmate (class of 1944) of Thomas Anthony Dooley III. He later attended the College of the Holy Cross, the University of Chicago (MA in English Literature), and Yale Law School. As a young man, he was interested in both leftwing politics and Catholicism. Fittingly, he joined Dorothy Day's Catholic Worker movement, a pacifist group that advocated a radical interpretation of the Gospel. Above all else, Harrington was an intellectual. He loved arguing about culture and politics, preferably over beer, and his Jesuit education made him a fine debater and rhetorician. Harrington was an editor of The Catholic Worker from 1951 to 1953. However, Harrington became disillusioned with religion and, although he would always retain a certain affection for Catholic culture, he ultimately became an atheist.

Harrington married Stephanie Gervis, a free lance writer and staff writer for the Village Voice, on May 30, 1963.

Becoming a socialist

This estrangement from religion was accompanied by a growing interest in Marxism and a drift toward secular socialism. After leaving The Catholic Worker Harrington became a member of the Independent Socialist League, a small organization associated with the former Trotskyist leader Max Shachtman. Harrington and Shachtman believed that socialism, the promise of a just and fully democratic society, could not be realized under authoritarian Communism and they were both fiercely critical of the "bureaucratic collectivist" states in Eastern Europe and elsewhere.

Harrington became a member of Norman Thomas's Socialist Party when the SP agreed to absorb Shachtman's organization. Harrington backed the Shachtmanite realignment strategy of working within the Democratic Party rather than running candidates on a Socialist ticket.

Socialist leader

Harrington served as the first editor of New America, the official weekly newspaper of the Socialist Party-Social Democratic Federation launched in October 1960.

During this period Harrington wrote The Other America: Poverty in the United States, a book that had an impact on the Kennedy administration, and on Lyndon B. Johnson's subsequent War on Poverty. Harrington became a widely read intellectual and political writer. He would frequently debate noted conservatives but would also clash with the younger radicals in the New Left movements. He was present at the 1962 SDS conference that led to the creation of the Port Huron Statement, where he argued that the final draft was insufficiently anti-Communist. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr. referred to Harrington as the "only responsible radical" in America. His high profile landed him on the master list of Nixon political opponents.

By early 1970s Shachtman's anti-Communism had become a hawkish Cold War liberalism. Shachtman and the governing faction of the Socialist Party effectively supported the Vietnam War and changed the organization's name to Social Democrats, USA. In protest Harrington led a number of Norman Thomas-era Socialists, younger activists and ex-Shachtmanites into the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee. A smaller faction associated with peace activist David McReynolds formed the Socialist Party USA.

In the early 1980s The Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee merged with the New American Movement, an organization of New Left veterans, forming Democratic Socialists of America. This organization remains the principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International, which includes socialist parties as diverse as the Swedish and German Social Democrats, Nicaragua's FSLN, and the British Labour Party.

Academician and public intellectual

Harrington was appointed a professor of political science at Queens College in 1972 and was designated a distinguished professor in 1988. During the 1980s he contributed commentaries to National Public Radio. Harrington died on July 31, 1989 of cancer. He was the most well-known socialist in the United States during his lifetime. In the 1970s he coined the term neoconservatism.

More about Michael Harrington:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Harrington