Obama Flow Chart

[Kate]

I really really like him.

[Callie Del Noire]

I really really like him.

By and far, I think he's done a good job. Setting the rules on how special interest jobs affect the position in his cabinet (and their staff) was a good start. Changing his approach to troop deployment timelines when he got his briefing (sorry.. you don't pull EVERYONE out of the gulf over night.. it's just not wise)

I do think he's trying. Sometimes he does boneheaded things (Olympics bid) but it's small things..and let's be honest.. they don't harm anyone truthfully.

I do think the media and certain groups have some unrealistic expectations of him (to hear some folks he should wave a magic wand and health care, the economy and the issues overseas will all be solved). Which leaves me wondering what will happen when they don't get what they want..

[Cythieus]

What gets me is people expect one man to undo mistakes of at least 8 years (I wasn't too fond of the previous 8 years either) and they expect this all to be done in less than a year. Our Intelligence community is still shit, Evangelical idiots are still forcing us to deal with their laws, Wall Street is out of control, and Congress went from being average people who represent us all to a pack loons...you can't expect someone to come in and not just change some stuff that should have been changed before, but make a system that never works, suddenly work for him. Couple this with the fact that half the media is finding anything he does as a screw up while the other half is pretty much making excuses and no one is going "It's been one year, calm the Hell down and let him at least try!"

[Callie Del Noire]

I've always felt that you don't realize the impact of policy changes and such for years after to actually show an effect on the real world. Too many John (and Jane) Q. Public voters want things to change over night.

My BIG issue with government is the fact that everyone wants things to work but no patience for the time it takes to do it. The Deficit didn't shrink because of one president. It took nearly 2 decades of progressive policies, changes as the economy changed, and compromise.

I do not even the president in his challenges to come. Too many folks think he can fix 8 years of stupid policies (by and far) in no time at all.

[OldSchoolGamer]

What most people don't realize is that, economically, America is now a failed state.

There's enough wealth still leftover that it doesn't look like a failed state.  Not completely, and not yet.  But we're right about where the Soviet Union was in the late Eighties, in terms of growing, fundamental imbalances in the system that simply cannot be rectified by policy tweaks, budget shifts, and so on.  A change in the fundamentals in how the system operates will be required.  But the public is too scared of the "socialism" bugaboo to embrace actual change.

The state I live in (California) is a perfect example of this.  They've cut the budget six ways to Sunday, furloughed state workers twice a month, raised college tuition...and according to projections we're still going to be $8 to 14 billion in the hole this year.  Something's broken.

What's broken is American capitalism itself.  Advocates of free-market economics trumpet how the hardworking and creative and productive are rewarded under capitalism and that's what makes it such a great system.  Trouble is, those aren't the kind of folks getting rewarded in America.  The rewards are increasingly going to people who produce little if any real wealth: the CEOs, the arbitrageurs, the inventors of exotic new "securities" that are at best greatly overrated and at worst downright fraudulent.  Those are the people getting the rewards.  There's little functional difference between our system and that of the Soviets in terms of nonproductive "managers" and bureaucrats and other entrenched interests getting wealthy while the working people who actually produce the wealth get the shaft.

If we still had $25/bbl crude oil, the system could probably totter on for another couple decades.  But cheap oil is running out, and that is bringing the issue of these imbalances and inefficiencies to a head. 

[Cythieus]

I don't think that anyone really is saying its a failed state, even the people who saw this all coming. Failing for one indicates that there's no change taking place and there is. Innovation is rewarded here, its just that the people doing it have to work hard. There's no system that recognizes the good ideas of everyone. It's pretty much impossible.

Every system has its classes, but I think the big difference here is that there's room to move up.

[kylie]

     Kicking up the usage in international relations differentiations, a "failed state" typically does not have military control of more than part of its territory (prototypically, the capital and perhaps other cities).  So it's hard to match that one.  There is an argument -- as example, the website following -- that the US could well be called a "semi-failed" state because it is within other criteria commonly cited with "failed" states.  On that site it's a skeleton argument, but I don't think the directional points are so disputable.  It would be more a question of what quality and degree of these one considers acceptable.  http://samvak.tripod.com/failedstate.html

     Namely:
Perceived as a threat by others; history of attacking peaceful or militarily incapable ("pacified") others
Weak institutions re: national disasters, environmental law, consumer protection
Corrupt legislators and unstable separation of powers
Reliance on private organizations to fulfill national priorities

     Also...  In my understanding the US is doing unfavorably compared to most other "developed" countries in terms of health care costs, satisfaction with its health care, literacy rates, infant mortality rates, and availability of public transit.  I don't know so well about crime rates, but we're also real infamous in Britain and Japan for the prevalence of gun violence. 

     The CIA (do they care to check such things?) lists us around 71 of 122 for reported unemployment in early 2009 (making 122 fewest unemployed) -- only slightly better than India or the EU average (at 69).  Included in the countries with higher employment are many of the Western EU countries, Canada, S. Korea, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, Vietnam, China, Russia and other CIS, Nicaragua...   
http://www.photius.com/rankings/economy/unemployment_rate_2009_0.html