The Audacity of Hope - gone Wild

HOPE: it is the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best. What a tremendous opportunity this crisis seems to have afforded the new administration. In spite of my best hopes, I have to admit that it seems the Obama administration knows exactly what it is doing. You see, if they were just "figuring it out" then there would be the audacity of hope that they might expand their view, ask more questions. Perhaps, understand their false history. Secure additional advice, new ideas, new perspectives on history. The audacity to hope that they are inadvertently driving the market down, down, down. Inadvertently, creating fear, hopelessness and predicting unprecedented disaster. I suspect now, that it is all too intentional. And in that sense there is no hope of a learning curve. It is their philosophical foundation. We are looking now at a federal government budget that will be 100% bigger in 10 years, than the cumulative budgets of every administration starting from 1789 all the way through the Bush administration. 10 years from now we will spend more money as a government- that is "we the people"- than the combined total of our forefathers. Two times larger than the budgets of every adminstration from George Washington to Bush. The Wall Street Journal suggests that Obama propose's a budget that seeks to not only "expand the role of the federal government but to put it in such a dominant position that its power can never be rolled back..." What we are seeing is the audacity of hope gone wild.

Is this the change we have been believed in? Even those of us that voted haltingly for McCain want the US to succeed. Leveraging words and tactics and strategy to always be right? Sounds like actions and attitudes in direct line with criticisms of the previous administration. Even some democrats are understanding the ambiguity of the situation. Take for example President Obama's exhortation that we move quickly on a "stimulus" bill. Do what I am suggesting he says, or we will "turn a crisis into a catastrophe." (see at 6:13) Never mind the exaggeration about this being the "worst recession since the great depression". A stretch rivaling some of the most significant stretches of the previous democratic administration. Focus for now on the President's procession after the threat to set wishy-washy benchmarks by indicating that his "stimulusproposal will "save" or create up to 4 million jobs. Not noting for us, of course, that there is no way for us to check his efficacy in "saving" even a single job, let alone millions of jobs. It is a tactic with which even some democrats seem frustrated. "You created a situation where you cannot be wrong," the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Democrat Max Baucus, told the US Treasury Chief.

"If the economy loses 2 million jobs over the next few years, you can say yes, but it would've lost 5.5 million jobs. If we create a million jobs, you can say, well, it would have lost 2.5 million jobs," Baucus said. "You've given yourself complete leverage where you cannot be wrong, because you can take any scenario and make yourself look correct."

As Obama's chief of staff has indicated they are ginning up a whole bunch of administration "wins" on the backs of US citizens by exploiting the fear and nervousness this crisis affords. "Never waste a good crisis." And this administration has taken that strategy to a whole new level. It is breath-taking how effectively this is being done and how we are taking the bait.

Simply Breath-taking.