McCain couldn't pull it out. The vote was overwhelming for "change" of some sort. I guess I can understand that. It will always amaze me that Obama benefitted from the desire to "change", when he himself had never demonstrated any ability other than speech-giving. But now comes the real challenge. Can Obama govern in the face of real problems?
He faces extraordinary obstacles. I predict that by the time he takes office, GM and Ford will have declared bankruptcy, and the nation will be looking at a real depression, with several million expected to be out of work. Under these circumstances, Obama is most likely to go the FDR route of massive government intervention, which will prolong the downturn just as it did for FDR. In addition, I think we'll see another splurge of easy money from the Fed.
The last time the Fed decided to open the money spigot was on the eve of Y2K, which both Alan Greenspan and I bought into. We were wrong, of course. The difference is that my error just meant that I had a basement full of Spam. Alan Greenspan flooded the economy with dollars and pushed inflation up dramatically, along with housing prices and stock prices. A good case can be made that his mult-billion dollar infusion of greenbacks in late 1999 actually planted the seeds for the current financial debacle. It will be ironic if another such flood of cash triggers the worst depression in our history!
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