Obama says expect change? I don't see it Options

[Tung]

I don't know man. The people he's choosing for his cabinet is very questionable. I would like to focus on how and why he is picking his cabinet, on the one hand, from different constituencies but, on the other, how he is tapping primarily Clintonites who were responsible for deregulation and the economic catastrophe now upon us.

I don't know if you guys been reading up on what's going on, but I just feel Obama's economic policies and "plan" is going to backfire, and I really expect an economic catastrophe in 2009. There's already a projected 300,000+ jobs being laid off, in just California alone I believe. I was also reading up on this study that they did on Black Friday. They interview alot of people, and most of them said Black Friday was the first time they went shopping in the whole month of November. They furthermore said, they won't be shopping for a while, and already got their Christmas shopping done. What does that mean? Economy will suffer greatly this month, than in the past years. This means business won't be good. =\

Anyways, I'm questioning Obama's choices for his cabinet.

[mipadi]

From The New York Times (which is a shitty newspaper, but I digress):

“If we don’t act swiftly and boldly,” declared President-elect Barack Obama in his latest weekly address, “we could see a much deeper economic downturn that could lead to double-digit unemployment.” If you ask me, he was understating the case.

The fact is that recent economic numbers have been terrifying, not just in the United States but around the world. Manufacturing, in particular, is plunging everywhere. Banks aren’t lending; businesses and consumers aren’t spending. Let’s not mince words: This looks an awful lot like the beginning of a second Great Depression.

[...]

News reports say that Democrats hope to pass an economic plan with broad bipartisan support. Good luck with that.

In reality, the political posturing has already started, with Republican leaders setting up roadblocks to stimulus legislation while posing as the champions of careful Congressional deliberation — which is pretty rich considering their party’s behavior over the past eight years.

More broadly, after decades of declaring that government is the problem, not the solution, not to mention reviling both Keynesian economics and the New Deal, most Republicans aren’t going to accept the need for a big-spending, F.D.R.-type solution to the economic crisis.

The biggest problem facing the Obama plan, however, is likely to be the demand of many politicians for proof that the benefits of the proposed public spending justify its costs — a burden of proof never imposed on proposals for tax cuts.

This is a problem with which Keynes was familiar: giving money away, he pointed out, tends to be met with fewer objections than plans for public investment “which, because they are not wholly wasteful, tend to be judged on strict ‘business’ principles.” What gets lost in such discussions is the key argument for economic stimulus — namely, that under current conditions, a surge in public spending would employ Americans who would otherwise be unemployed and money that would otherwise be sitting idle, and put both to work producing something useful.

[...]

So this is our moment of truth. Will we in fact do what’s necessary to prevent Great Depression II?