Newsweek "Hit the road Barrack we need a new president" ( Archived) (19)

Niall Ferguson: Obama’s Gotta Go
I was a good loser four years ago. “In the grand scheme of history,” I wrote the day after Barack Obama’s election as president, “four decades is not an especially long time. Yet in that brief period America has gone from the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. to the apotheosis of Barack Obama. You would not be human if you failed to acknowledge this as a cause for great rejoicing.”

Despite having been—full disclosure—an adviser to John McCain, I acknowledged his opponent’s remarkable qualities: his soaring oratory, his cool, hard-to-ruffle temperament, and his near faultless campaign organization.
In his inaugural address, Obama promised “not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth.” He promised to “build the roads and bridges, the electric grids, and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together.” He promised to “restore science to its rightful place and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost.” And he promised to “transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age.” Unfortunately the president’s scorecard on every single one of those bold pledges is pitiful.
Unemployment was supposed to be 6 percent by now. It has averaged 8.2 percent this year so far. Meanwhile real median annual household income has dropped more than 5 percent since June 2009. Nearly 110 million individuals received a welfare benefit in 2011, mostly Medicaid or food stamps.

Welcome to Obama’s America: nearly half the population is not represented on a taxable return—almost exactly the same proportion that lives in a household where at least one member receives some type of government benefit. We are becoming the 50–50 nation—half of us paying the taxes, the other half receiving the benefits.

Yet the question confronting the country nearly four years later is not who was the better candidate four years ago. It is whether the winner has delivered on his promises. And the sad truth is that he has not.

It takes 2 to Tango and the Repubs didn't want to Tango. There's your answer.

You're not doing much worse than most other Western nations though, are you?

It also helps to consider the state of the global economy and the ill-favourable economic winds prevailing at the moment.. and for the a nation that ultimately believes in the ineffectiveness of government you display a remarkable ability to blame the government for everything.

I just remember this knee-jerk "yes we can do it if we only had change" mentality as being the same that elected Obama, and you're doing it again.

Honestly, it's as if you Americans believe wealth and prosperity will simply fall from the sky.

"WE" always did well before even when the rest of the world was in the tank! America "was" once 50% of the world's economy! Look at us now!!
Who was in charge in DC? The Democrats and Republicans!! Just out forefathers foretold "when the politicians are "for sale" this would happen", and they were right!

And all of them in DC lied to us, what they were playing was a funeral march!

Your role model is Field of dreams?
A Man who builds a baseball field in his backyard for ghosts. That's your market research?

I'm only joking, by the way.

As you say, he didn't find the income increase so without the purchasing power for affordable housing it's a rather fruitless endeavour.