Week 7 Blog

So, a lot of stuff happened this week, so I will get straight to the point with my views of three articles this week.

Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei refer to Barack Obama as the nation's CEO. They say that what he has done during his brief presidency thus far is take the bull by the horns in terms of the nation's economy. He pretty much forced the CEO of General Motors, Rick Wagoner, to resign from his post, and he has been doing everything in his power to fix the economy. Not long ago, he criticized AIG for paying out bonuses to those that helped the country fail economically. This past week, he helped partner with investors to buy $1 trillion in bad assets. So, as the authors of the article point out, it is clear that he is taking over our nation's economy and making that his number one plan of action.

Personally, I don't know what I think of this. I mean, our nation's economy is in shambles, but is Obama stretching his power when he forces the CEO of GM to quit. How can he do it? I mean, I agree that Wagoner isn't a very good CEO, but still, I think maybe he went a little too far there. But, if his plans are successful, then why complain? It's ok, in this case, to break the rules as long as it benefits the country. I mean, what's the harm in it? On the other side, if, four years down the road, the nation's economy is not better, or, God forbid, worse, how will we look back on actions like this? It'll be interesting to see.

Howard Fineman had a very humorous piece about how Obama is becoming "Super Prez" sort of like a Mr. Fix-It to the United States. Something "in the lab" went horribly wrong, and as soon as he got inaugurated, the President decided to take action on his own. Is there an evil CEO like Rick Wagoner? Well, President Obama can use his superpowers to fire him. If an industry is in trouble, he will send his own "czars" to protect it. Very humorous article.

I really enjoyed this article. The author does have his point. I mean, Obama has become a celebrity whom everybody expects to fix everything. He's appeared on "The Tonight Show," "60 Minutes," and even ESPN, anywhere possible to get a spare word in. He has taken action as well, he's pushed spending plans through Congress with relative ease. It's an interesting analogy, but I can see the superhero thing. Very, very compelling.

I saw an article on CNN.com that detailed Obama's new plan to restore global economy and end the world's recession. The article mentions that British prime minister Gordon Brown is aligned with Obama on this plan, and the two were part of a group of 20 world leaders at a summit recently. Obama wants the leaders to act with urgency. Brown helped Obama come up with five goals for this proposal, one is obvious, and that is to restore the global banking system.

I like this policy. It shouldn't be surprising, I mean I am far from a moderate. But the recession is a scary thing, and the US isn't alone in dealing with this. Why not put the world's leaders in one place, try to think up a solution to this mess, and let's hopefully get ourselves out of this. Some, like French president Sarkozy, don't like the ideas presented at the summit, but still, I think we must come up with a solution to the problem. Therefore, this is a great thing, in my honest opinion.