So far he hasn’t tackled most of them, but given they way new ones keep ticking over (eg the end to the ban on HIV+ve entrants to the US) its certainly not possible to say he won’t. If he gets Healthcare with a public option through (even a weak public option) a lot of other possibilities will suddenly open up.

Looking at the seven he’s broken only one (#240) really bothers me. The rest were minor or made necessary by changed circumstances. I haven’t looked through all the compromises, but it doesn’t look to me like there are major sellouts there.

* I’m assuming this is not achieved by failing on the larger promises and racking up success on all the smaller ones.

What mess would that be? Honestly, millions around the world are thrown out of work, much of the world’s financial system is only being kept afloat by massive government bailouts, world trade collapses at a faster rate than during the Great Depression, governments have their revenues fall through the floor and have to stimulate like mad, and right-wingers say, problem? What problem?

And explain to me how one little government initiative – that had been around 30-odd years – can bring down the entire world financial system? Maybe markets don’t work as well as the Right would have us believe. Use a bit of common sense my lad! Do right-wingers ever stop to question the plausibility of lines they’ve been fed by Republicans and the Murdoch press?

more or less forced US banks to extend to poor credit risks

More less than more.

But thanks for Right Wing Talking Points, Hits and Memories, anyway.

Hiccup? Is that the same as the Great Black Sniffle of the 14th century?

Too much government interference once again leads to a poor outcome.

Amongst whom you would presumably include Paul Keating?

What mess would that be? It seems from recent developments that the death of capitalism was welcomed prematurely – and business as usual is about to resume.

Tune the regulations a bit and away we go!

Back to PeterTB: the Right seems to forget that Reagan initially cut taxes but then had to go back and raise them when the deficit got out of control.

They also assert that Reagan’s tax cut pulled the country out of recession in the early eighties. Serious economists are much more inclined to point to Paul Volcker finally easing up on inflation.

Ideology and revisionism – nothing to do with reality.

It was Reagan and Thatcher and all their followers, with their deregulation ideology, that got us into this mess.

Ginja “….deep recession I should say – thanks to Keynesian economics a deep depression has been avoided!”

Absolutely. About 50 trillion dollars disappeared out of the international financial system during the meltdown last year. If ever there was a time for priming the economy, it was then. Talk about inflation fears was ludicrous. Deflation was – or should have been – the big fear.

Keynsian economics kept the economy running. When the government lets it go to hell because they believe it will right itself you get what happened in 1929-32 where the US economy shrank 48 percent and lost the equivilent of an entire year’s GDP in that short time. We avoided that disaster this time around.

Compared to what. And if you are correct the question needs to be asked: who is placing the rocks in the road? Others have pointed out that Obama has inherited a deeply fractious polity and a sorely (perhaps fatally) wounded economy. It would be a leader of almost unimaginable strength who could drive the nation in one direction, indeed it would probably take a crisis of the utmost seriousness before the nation was shaken out of its hysterical, psychotic state.

Of course this did happen 8 years ago, unfortunately the country was ruled by the shallowest collection of sneak thieves ever to control the executive branch.

So leaven your criticism of Obama with reflections on what might of been had he had the chance to take a shattered but defiant citizenry and ply them with some wisdom.