What was your opinion of the economy when President Obama took office?

[roseBudd]

36. actually moodys.com war gamed the do nothing scenario...

much much worse. We would be learning the meaning of deflation.

http://www.economy.com/mark-zandi/documents/End-of-Great-Recession.pdf

Letting GM fail would have likely taken down the entire supply chain and cost millions of jobs

To get an idea how serious this liquidity trap was, read what happened on the day the stimulus bill failed because GOP voted no

April 17, 2009

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/29/national/main4485321.shtml

FDR had a mandate, the Depression had been going on 3 years when he took office. He also had an electorate that had no social safety net. Starvation produces a hell of a mandate.

Contrast that with Obama inaugurated within months of a financial crisis, the bulk of the cascading spriral of layoffs still to come, over 700,000 job losses per month.

Plus the percentage of the electorate that doesn't read financial news, was oblivious to how narrowly we dodged the bullet of Depression 2.0. Obama not only did not have a mandate, (how do you convince macroeconomic illiterates of the necessity of breaking a liquidity trap wsith massive taxpayer funded spending?) Obama also had an opposition party nothing like what FDR faced.

IMO if we support OWS & the 99%, we must become financial sector literate. It's why I like the Economist, Financial Times, Bloomberg Business News, Forbes, on Facebook & why I routinely read the CapitalGainsandGames blog, love Bruce Bartlett and Mark Zandi, and were I prone to procreation would name my first born Bernanke. Bernanke saved our asses from a fate few younger than 95 years old can imagine.