De-Pressed Conference

President Obama staged his second prime-time press conference this evening. The purpose of which was to provide insight into the new $3,600,000,000,000 budget and to assure the American people that while the price is high, the intentions are noble. The two-pronged approach is geared to stabilize the economy and plant the foundation for future growth, by investing in renewable energy, infrastructure and education.

With respect to education, the President referred to America's falling behind stating "countries like China and India will be running laps around our young people" which is true as far as my anecdotal evidence points. The fact that Americans do not realize that the playing field is globally level now and that our self-indulged young people will face serious competition in the future job market seems to be lost on them. Emphasis was also made that finding savings in the healthcare and defense sectors and repealing tax cuts back to Reagan-era levels for the top 1% of wage earners will help to offset new spending in other areas.

Most of this we have all heard in the last few weeks but it is always nice to see the President answer questions from the press; this is where his intelligence and thoughtfulness shine. He does know what he is talking about and perhaps this is the only consolation. What he proposes is costly and scary but as he points out and as I pointed out yesterday, there are lots of critics but no alternate solutions.

It was a sobering press conference as usual, times are tough, the solutions are difficult to comprehend and there is still a chance that it all might not work out the way we planned but something has to be done. Perhaps our expectations are too high? At the end of the day, Americans do need to believe that the fundamentals of the American economy are strong and that we will return to economic prominence and world dominance once we lick this crisis. I hope so but we have a long way to go, probably longer than we dare admit.

It is nice to see the President acknowledge that the gains of the last decade were artificially fueled so on the one hand he does get it but on the other hand his belief and optimism in America's future requires an audacity of hope that a culture mired in greed and deceit may not have the patience to muster.