The press conference began with an appearance by The One, who unironically expressed confidence in “the team that we’ve got assembled” despite not actually having a working economic team or more than one confirmed Treasury official. Then there was….

For those who wanted him to fail.

You lose.

Again.

getalife on March 23, 2009 at 11:14 AM

Dow up 285.

getalife on March 23, 2009 at 11:15 AM

lol one day of gains-maybe a week-doesn’t a president make.

dont even get me going on forign policy.

They are using the Clinton team.

Triple digit gains in the Dow today.

takeacrap on March 23, 2009 at 9:31 AM

“The Clinton team” sat and did nothing for 5 years after Enron started cooking their books in 1996.

BTW, I find it amazing that a drive-by poster can tell us of “triple digit gains in the Dow today” in a comment that was posted exactly one minute after the market opened this morning. Can I have some of what you’re smoking?

The White House initially said that the 16-member Presidential Economic Recovery Advisory Board, headed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, would meet “every few weeks.” Last month, a spokesperson told POLITICO the group would meet monthly. And more recently, the White House said the high-powered board, set up to address what Obama has called the worst economic emergency since the Great Depression, would gather only about four times a year, with the next session due in “late spring.”

Every few weeks, monthly, quarterly, late spring, WHEN? Sounds like the Mexican government, manana, manana. Will they meet in 2012 to launch Obama’s reelection campaign fund? How much effort does it take to get 16 people in a room together? Or maybe they haven’t found the 16 people who are supposed to meet…

This is like Katrina, only worse–our financial levees are breached, we are drowning in debt, and our Federal Government is stuck on stupid. Waiting for Da Man from da home of Da Bears to figure out what to do.

Mitt Romney, call the White House. Your country needs you!

I dont think you’ll see anyone comprehensively staffing Treasury until after Tiny Tim goes the way of the Dodo Bird.

I have also officially given up playing the “What if it was Bush pulling all this shit” game. Too many examples and none of them reported on.

Like your tea parties, lets show patriotism and support our great President.

getalife on March 23, 2009 at 12:23 PM

Isn’t dissent patriotic now?

What changed in a years time?

Those who do not will be called trolls.

Getalife, I appreciate that you are a poorly-paid astroturfer recruited from your local college chapter of White Suburban Communist Kids for Consensus or some other such foolish organization, but please, take pride in your work. Why don’t you actually TRY to make your comments nuanced, interesting or thought-provoking. Engage in a debate of ideas. Challenge our policies. For the love of God, do something more than throw out the same old tired rah! rah! propaganda that is both meaningless and factually incorrect. Be a proud little soldier and at least pretend that you care enough about your job to be effective. At the very least, be funny. If we’re going to be stuck with each other, at least make it entertaining.

patriette on March 23, 2009 at 10:08 AM

Well said, but in a lost cause, I’m afraid. You’re talking to a spambot that gets taken offline when the Dow falls for the day. Better to use its posts as a golf tee to set up your own points, rather than respond to it directly. It just produces a ton of brainless two-sentence posts that make the comment boards hard to read.

Whatevs. If +143 makes your leg tingle, then go enjoy yourself for the few hours (or minutes) it lasts. The trillion dollars the Fed just quietly printed out of thin air and pumped into the banking system is about to cause hyperinflation like nobody’s business. The Dow is just one cog in an extremely complex economic machine that you clearly don’t understand. Unfortunately, neither does our President, who once said that he thought $10/gal for gas sounded great to him, and later followed up by saying how wise it would be to bankrupt the coal industry.

Seriously, enjoy the +143, getalife. It may be the last positive economic sign you see for a very, very, very long time.

aero on March 23, 2009 at 10:11 AM

Inflation is very worrisome indeed, but I think the real long-term damage is the loss in market confidence. It will take much longer to repair that, and it’s harder to conceive of a short-term policy agenda that would be much help. Advanced economies rely heavily upon trust – trust in the value of currency, the stability of contractual arrangements, and the sanctity of private property. All three of those things have been shattered, in a process that began before Obama’s election, but went into overdrive during the last few months.

Simple economies feature very little trust or confidence – buyers and sellers compare bartered goods directly. Marxist collectivism is also a very primitive economic system, in that its subject class doesn’t have to trust anyone – they are required to obey, and compelled by force when necessary. In order to achieve the more advanced productivity and technological accomplishments of the modern free market, it is necessary for the participants in the economy to have a certain degree of trust for each other, and for the system itself. It’s not reasonable to expect average people to become medical doctors before they purchase health care, or doctors of economics before they buy some stock, or expert auto mechanics before they purchase an automobile. The consumer’s trust in the providers of these goods and services allows the advanced economy to function.

Post-Obama, we live in an economy collapsing from its lack of trust in the value of currency, or the legal security of contracts and purchases. Consumer complaints about goods and services are nothing compared to the damage caused by the very foundations of the economy being shaken. In the last few weeks, executives and top-level employees have learned they can be targeted with special taxes; the government can forcibly take over companies, as it did with Wells-Fargo, which was compelled to accept bailout money it didn’t want; and investors have learned the currency can be devalued by fiat, through massive deficit spending, very swiftly and with little debate. The market has seen that government incompetence and malfeasance will not be punished or corrected – it has not escaped the notice of investors that Barney Frank and Chris Dodd are still in power, guilty as sin and free as birds.

Even the concept of competitive enterprise has been threatened, because giant bailouts prevent badly run industries from failing and releasing their customer base to hungry competitors. What’s the point of making huge efforts to beat Ford or GM in the marketplace, if the government won’t let you win, because it won’t let them lose?

It will take a long time to undo the damage that has been caused by the crisis of confidence, damage whose effects are just now beginning to make themselves felt in a slow, glacial collapse.

Recession is over.

The President earned his second term.

“We have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board…This evil institution has impoverished…the people of the United States…and has practically bankrupted our government. It has done this through…the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it.” ….(1932~~Republican Representative Louis T. McFadden of Pennsylvania, the Former Chairman of the House Banking & Currency Commission during the great depression)

My guess? A few Soros types are buying into the market in a big way…

Bambi needed good news to distract people from his mismanagement…

And if they sell at the proper time… they can create an uptick, and then cash out when others, seeing the market “recover”, start to buy back in.

Dow up 285.

getalife on March 23, 2009 at 11:15 AM

after a decline of how many thousands?

Of course it could be part of the master plan. With 17 positions open, that’s 17 people you don’t have to worry about running off at the mouth.