I had an in depth round table discussion with some other economists here tonight. Cigar and scotch kind of thing. The general consensus is that Obama can't really do much worse than the current administration. The president of the college asked if Obama was socialist. The response was "compared to what?" compared to the current administration, its hard to imagine a more socialist government. We mean, we've just socialized the mortgage industry, the investment banking industry, and the banking sector, bailing out the auto industry. Theres not much left or socialize. Health care? If you count all the money spent on interventionist foreign policy, socialized health care would be a minor percentage of that. Bush came in as a Republican, but ended as a socialist global interventionist.
There was also mention, by non-economists, about how this is the second great depression. Look, The great depression witnessed a loss of whole thirds of the national economy, This quarter we saw 1/4 of one percent contraction in GDP. This is not the Great Depression II. This is a recession. Recessions are a completely normal part of the business cycle.
At the end, we all agreed Obama can't do much worse than the current president, and that the data prove that "redistributionist" policies can actually lead to economics growth.