Some comments are that "It Could Be Worse." - 2009 New York Times Magazine

Also - Click President Signing Unemployement Act - 2010 as well for more ...

The above link is a 2009 interview site where the U.S. president sat down with a magazine editor and went over some items not only affecting our country, but other administrations as well that look to the O'Bama administration as an example, especially those in the western hemisphere.  This is the first I had heard that the president's mom had a cancer attack, then she apparently had stroke and upon that fell and broke her hip.  This would be a sorrowful thing for anyone, and this happened during the presidential campaign which must have been doubly disconcerting for the to - be president - elect and it shows his leadership skills to be able to speak about this openly, and to talk about it within the overall framework of medical care in the U.S.

It seems to me that with respect to this article that someone make a determination as I have that public finance began the financial crisis and (through Fannie and Freddie, and maybe even other entities of the same nature) with their collapse led to further problems that eventually touched upon the private sector and snowballed further.  The president in his interview appears not to know this and despite the conversation, the interviewer appears lost on it as well, even despite some discussion of the now passing financial rules in Congress and the Volcker - influenced regulations relating to macroeconomic financial safety and soundness.  Here also seems to be some cloudiness on the subject of the role of the U.S. Treasury now that the scandals have been remedied and how the moneys that funded the failures are to be repaid.  There is, however, some discussion of the technology and other crucial sectors driving paper profits and these parts of commerce, at least in the future, according to the interview, will not have the same primary role as revenue and income drivers in the economy as they did before. 

The interview includes a discussion of the president's overall views on the economy and his perceptions about workers and their choices and goals, for example, of the workforce toward greater vocational fulfilment, greater employment, and better lives for workers.  There is a surprising omission of any discussion of the basic relationships between the means of production and labor in the talk illustrated in this article, and in fact it appears that the president has decided, maybe accurately, the economy of the U.S. must at this point, and for very healthy reasons, become at least in part a labor economy among others.  By this he must believe in anti - inflationary measures and the general provisions of labor economics with the all encompassing statistics they have and so forth.  There was a significant discussion on the subject of health care and this article notes that ninety percent of health care costs are attributed to chronically ill patients in clinics and hospitals - and with this in mind, what one can do with health care costs - with the emphasis on the cost structure of delivering health care when the fixed costs are so high.  One back - of - the - envelope solution has been to "socialize" health care, but given the structure of insurance and other vehicles that cover health care in the U.S. and they way they have been for years, it does appear, for further discussion yet, that health care is already socialized.  This lawyer - president appears to want to depend upon quantitative methods for his executive powers and their implementation, and it is in any event very interesting to have read through this year - old magazine piece from May 2009 to find many of the same issues as looked -at still up - to - date.