The “hit the ground running” strategy the Obama Administration has adhered to since the inauguration has an unfortunate side effect:  It’s making people impatient for positive change in the economy, the war in Iraq, and the general sense of malaise that has permeated not only the U.S. but most of the world as well.

Managing expectations is a tough thing to do when, for example, Obama’s presidential campaign was premised on the keywords of “Change” and “Hope.” People are expecting rapid change; a wave of a magic wand and things will be “back to normal.”  But whatever “normal” was, we’re not going back — hell, I don’t think we even want to go back.  Clearly, we’re at the proverbial turning point where the current economic problems that plague the world  aren’t going to go away in a few months. And if there were ever an image that sums up the shock, frustration, and collective inability of the world’s leadership to manage this crisis, it would be Desmond Tutu’s excessive emoting at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

As the political culture in Washington D.C. frets over the likes of Tom Daschle and certain provisions in the economic stimulus plan, there’s very little talk about the nature of the global economic mess we’re in. Perhaps it’s just easier to concentrate on taxes owed, pork barrel spending, what constitutes lobbying, but it seems whatever heavy lifting that is done by our friends in the mainstream media to enlighten us plebs on the details of this economic crisis, is undercut by a plethora of “sexy news stories” designed for easy consumption.  Fortunately, the information is out there, and while it’s not really that sexy to read, it does illuminate the enormity of the crisis and how we got to where we are.

To wit: The Economist has a wonkish, but ultimately helpful feature in the January 24th-30th edition that was broken up into a series of articles examining the current financial crisis from a number of perspectives.  Now, I’m not an economist, but after reading through the articles, I have a good sense of why the economic leaders who convened in Switzerland haven’t a clue what is to be done.  Ideology and downright confusion over the mechanisms that brought us to this current state have a great deal to do with it.  Not all who attended the conference were die hard capitalist, but many were and it seems the “way out” of this mess involves a partnership with an entity capitalists tend to dread: the State.  Like it or not, the State is the only entity with the wherewithal to instill an important “soft factor” in the economy: optimism.  Optimism bolsters trust, and our capitalist economies thrive when these, admittedly, difficult to quantify variables are strong. (more…)