Can Obama's policies fix the economy?

[OriginalGumby]

With unemployment reaching a new quarter-century high, the pressure is on for the Obama administration to deliver help for working people and get the economy on the road to recovery. SocialistWorker.org economics writer Lee Sustar answers your questions about what Obama is proposing, and what the chances of success are.

http://socialistworker.org/2009/04/08/can-obama-fix-the-economy

[9]

I sure as hell don't see it happening. So far, he's been a total tool.

[Pawn Power]

No amount of 'fixing' will change the fact that this economy is based on profit. They can attempt to regulate profits, which they are not, but they will never be able to regulate out the incentive of profit and the rewording of profitable corporations-- not that they want to. People and the environment will always come after profits on a capitalist system.

[Hoxhaist]

The fact that Obama is not even a Socialist and has to deal with a bourgeois press, impotent liberals, and mindless conservatives makes the possibility of real change unlikely although I love watching Fox News and listening to them shudder at the thought of Socialism coming to America. Their propaganda inspires me to make their nightmares come true!!

[Jimmie Higgins]

They've had to make some changes just because of the nature of the crisis. As bizarre as it was for Bush's neoliberal hacks to use the government to intervene in the economy is equally as bizarre that Obama's neoliberal Bill Clinton hand-me-downs, are turning away from the free-market orthodoxy that they made their careers on.

I think it would be a mistake for radicals not to acknowledge and try to understand the dramatic shift in thinking among the ruling class.

Of course, without pressure from mass movements or labor, our rulers are going to try and have the best of bourgeois worlds: a welfare state where only huge corporations have full citizenship (i.e. bailouts for the rich).

[commyrebel]

he will most likely stabiles it for now instill another ass hole comes in and try to screw the working man even more then the economy goes back to shit but before that i hope the revolution will happen

[HoChiMilo]

gumby... something tells me you knew our answers to this one already lol.

does anyone else draw the parallel between obama's administration and alexander kerensky's? yaknow... except for the fact that kerensky was a lot more socialist (and that's obv. not saying much).

i have a feeling barack, deep down inside, sympathizes with us almost 100 percent. he's the president though and he sold his ideologies out for a happy constituency:cursing:

[Hoxhaist]

If Obama is a fellow traveller or a sleeper, I wish him success!! (This was my hope during the whole election cycle)

[Jimmie Higgins]

No way is Obama a secret socialist or really all that sympathetic. He's a liberal through and through - it's just been a while since we've seen one in power in the states.

Obama wants guns and butter and bailouts! I think if we were to see a real labor rebellion in the US like in the 30s, then the question of which side Obama is on would become very clear.

Never the less, he was picked by the ruling class because he is very smart and can, at least in their hope, change things without opening the floodgates of a push for real change from below.

[swampfox]

I don't agree with how he is running our country. You can't continue putting a bandaid on a gash or sending failing companies money.

And you certainly can't keep borrowing money from other countries when you know you can't pay it back.

[OriginalGumby]

I don't support him because I think that he is trying to resolve this economic crisis on the terms of the American ruling class. Bailing out the financial system with our money while we lose our jobs, schools, and homes is injustice pure and simple. Obama is representing the interests of a few, of the capitalists and that is why I am against capitalism as a system. I think Howard Zinn described the screwed up choices we are given to choose from by the rulers, either to let the system crash causing more suffering or to for all of us to sacrifice and do with less so that the madmen running our economic system can be bailed out. We all need a new option, a system of democratic control of production, socialism. We need to build a movement to take our economy over for us so that our needs can be met.

[MolotovCocktail988]

Obama is just another politician. Nothing will change, no matter who we elect.

[Il Medico]

I don't see how, his policies are capitalist geared ones. I hope he will at least stop the downturn though. If he fails to do so the republicans may get back in, and that is a scary thought.

[Sarah Palin]

i have a feeling barack, deep down inside, sympathizes with us almost 100 percent. he's the president though and he sold his ideologies out for a happy constituency:cursing:

You have no idea how much I hope that's true. I hope he's just keeping it low key until his probable second term and then... single payer healthcare, global warming legislation, bring ALL troops home (including the imperialist extension troops in such benign places like Germany, Japan, etc), getting all religion out of government, legalization nationwide of cannabis and same sex marriage, nationalizing of most industries, and so on with more leftist policies.

But alas, that probably won't happen.