U.S. Leadership: Innocent or Guilty?

In his weekly editorial on Monday, James Kunstler laid out his belief that President Obama is a man able to provide the leadership necessary to lead the United States to what he sees as the future of the country: de-industrialised regional agriculture. His view is that, although the President may or many not have an understanding of the situation, Mr. Obama will rise to the occasion when needed. To quote:

"I think, he is going along, for the moment, with a consensus of wishes to prop up life as we know it at all costs.... I also think that circumstances will force Mr. Obama's hand before long -- specifically that a moment will arrive when he goes on TV and tells the American public that things have changed way beyond the scope of what they even imagined when they pulled the levers last fall and voted for an uncharted future."

Perhaps Mr. Kunstler is right, but we think not. The actions of the Obama Administration do not seem to be the actions of a "team" working towards legitimate, rational solutions to the present economic catastrophe. For example, Treasury Secretary Geithner's latest brainchild is eeriely familiar; we think he might have just ripped off some notes that former Secretary Hank Paulson left in the desk drawers.

No, we fear that Mr. Kunstler is hopeful, and not in a good way. He accepted the rhetoric of President Obama at face value, and is perhaps unwilling to address the lack of corrolation between Mr. Obama's words and the actions of the Administration. We feel the President is not the great bringer of change... but, we could be wrong. For instance, we though Geithner's new plan would crash the markets, but lo! it went up! So much for our omnipotence...

But seriously, the same questions we ask about the Administration are beginning to appear in more mainstream sources. Here is an article from, of all sources, the Rolling Stone - Mr. Kunstler's former employer - and from the pen of Mr. Matt Taibbi:

"The real question from here is whether the Obama administration is going to move to bring the financial system back to a place where sanity is restored and the general public can have a say in things[,] or whether the new financial bureaucracy will remain obscure, secretive and hopelessly complex."

We know which side we believe; it only remains to see if the Administration can put its actions in line with its rhetoric. Frankly, we don't think it ever will.