The new President will likely have a whole new style, be more
open,  more innovative,  more enlightened, and foster more
cooperation from diverse interests than his predecessor.  As time goes on  I view him as genuine
and likeable.  However, my thesis all along, which has not changed, is that
he will have much less impact than all would like (including him)
because crisis management and rapidly decreasing government revenue will
dominate the agenda. And, his likely way of managing the economic/financial mess will
be to pour more gasoline on the fire. That is to say a nation drunk on the
consumption of credit and the hangover of debt cannot get anywhere but
more sick when it creates more debt. Sadly, the stimulus program and all the
bailouts, which he endorses, will do just that. There may be a temporary
weak recovery, but in the long run the situation will get worse and the
bad times will just be stretched out. In truth, bad businesses must be
allowed to fail, home prices must be allowed to fall to their equilibrium
level (based on supply and demand), government spending must be reduced,
and savings must increase. Until these things happen the foundation for
true prosperity will not be laid. I think the people, including most
establishment folks, expect the President “to do something”, which means
government activism to spend more and to create bailouts. It is very hard
for the President to say and act to let the chips fail where they may.
Common sense should tell everyone that lasting prosperity cannot be
created by spending money that is created out of thin air (by the Federal
Reserve) thereby further increasing the staggering debt load. Very few
think this matters because it is hard to grasp the consequences that
surely lie out there. The urgent (trying to fix the unemployment or house
mortgage defaults) trumps the necessary (getting the nation on a stable
financial footing). The latter takes time and inflicts pain, not something
politicians can endorse–except in war time.

I pray earnestly that President Obama and his advisers will grasp the
basic principles of the law of economics (i.e., the need for savings and
investment AND the benefit that recessions bring to cleanse the system of
bad investment), but his appointments are the same folks that were either
part of or supported the policies that got us here.

Charisma, intelligence, likeability, honesty, etc. will not change these
truths any more than good intentions can reverse the law of gravity. If we
think so we are just deluding ourselves.