Monthly Archives: January 2010

I honestly did not get to see the State of the Union address that President Obama gave last night. I just happen to be one of those displaced workers that is over the age of 40 with no insurance and one that has gone back to school to try to adapt to the world that has obviously changed. I missed the address because I was studying for a test. At any rate, I have to say that I think that the current administration really does not bear responsibility for my lack of a job or the state our current economy is in. It was due to a compounding of many issues, and I realise that. I count myself as fortunate because I do know what my options are and I am going to make the best of what I can with what I have.

I worked for Dow Jones for the last four years and I can say that if people had any idea how incredibly close we came to losing it all, as in it being a far worse economic situation than they realise, I don’t think that there would be nearly as much bitching going on as I have been hearing in every quarter. Given what has happened in the financial sector, and the outright rape and pillage that has been going on here and abroad for at least the last ten to fifteen years on Wall Street and via corporations and the super rich, blaming Obama is like blaming your doctor for you having gotten sick in the first place when you ate the junk food, smoked the cigarettes, and indulged in all the other bad behaviours. Come on! How realistic is that?

It’s far from realistic to expect one man to fix a situation that took more than a decade to create in his first year in office. He’s inherited two wars, a recession, record unemployment due to outsourcing, a real estate bubble that burst big time, trillions of dollars in deficit from Dubya and Dick Cheney. Not to mention how much the U.S. lost its face in the world at large under Bush. And yet, so many of the mis-informed or under-informed people in the U.S. just expect Obama to wave his hand and make all that disappear in the first year. I would like to see someone, ANYONE ELSE in the world go up against those sorts of challenges and do it in a fashion that has everyone having warm fuzzies.

I did vote for Obama this last time, and he was not my first choice. But given the choice between he and the other alternative, I voted for him and am happy that I did. I will most probably vote for him again – especially if Hillary continues with his Cabinet as Secretary of State.

I think people really need to get more informed outside of their own sphere what is going on and really try to understand WHY we are in the current state that we are as a Nation. In this era of constant instant communications and where everything is “on demand” people need to get realistic about what government can and cannot do, how fast it can happen and how much they should be involved and give a damn about the process outside of their own little self-created and self-contained little worlds.