The President is bragging about the declining unemployment statistics.
Yet Columnists Peggy Noonan and George Will have pointed out the obvious: the numbers are going down because the number of job-seekers are decreasing. People have given up looking for work. The "hope and change" president has attained to another first: the first president who faced lower poll numbers even as the job stats seemed to get better.
The state has never had any success micromanaging the economy. An elite academic from Chicago was certainly not going to change that trend (unless, of course it was laissez-faire capitalist Milton Friedman, or any of his free market acolytes).
Corporations are making bigger profits currently, but the media have failed to point out the real issue: the profit margin of these companies. Oil companies may take in record profits, but that does not mean that corporate executives are pocketing larger salaries. Oil exploration is getting creative, but also more expensive. The oil sands of Alberta and the Midwestern United States have enough hydro-carbon to power the entire world of another century or two, but extracting the fuel from the sands and distilling it into usable energy is a costly endeavor, one for which consumers are paying at the pump.
The housing market is still falling. The much-needed course correction will remain stalled as long as the federal government keeps attempting to prop up or protect the price and investment of major banks and real estate firms. Less government in every sector of public life would ensure that the Great Recession would become a distant memory. A change in leadership can effect this change, no question about it.