What can the President do about job creation?

[Kulaf]

Not much, and people should stop blaming him for it. As I have said in the past the President always gets too much credit for a good economy and too much blame during a bad one. President Obama has a state of the union address coming up and I certainly hope that while reassuring the American people that things are going to get better, tells us to stay the course and ride it out. I hope there is not some reactionary call for a jobs bill or some other spending package aimed at relief when it really isn't going to accomplish anything.

[Ddrak]

He has some economic levers he can pull, but most of those are long-term ones.

Dd

[Lurker]

Most but not all. I'm sure Embar would like to see some tax credits aimed at small businesses to promote hiring, and other things like that. It'll be interesting to see what Obama proposes and what the Republican majority in the Senate allows. (Yeah, I know 41 seats isn't a majority, but that's practically how it's been reported)

[Embar Angylwrath]

Personally, my opinion is that throwing money at large banks and organizations pretending to be banks, did nothing to loosen credit, prevent failures of smaller banks, keep people in their homes or preserve jobs.

I've stated before that programs aimed at staiblzing the part of the economy responsible for most of hte jobs in America (small buninesses) and for keeping people in their homes, would do far more for the economy than propping up "to big to fail" institutions, just so they can engage in business as usual.

That said, the government is actually making some money on some of the bank bailout deals. It took a bath in the car industry bailouts though. And if they don't straighten out Frddie/Fannie, they'll take a bath on underwritten ortgages. So maybe Im wrong and they should keep shovelling money at banks.

[Ddrak]

Has anything actually been done about the toxic loans yet?

Dd