Maybe this is only wishful thinking, but this is what I think I'm seeing:

My husband works for an international company, actually foreign owned. After taking a deep breath and a pause last year, it seems as if the company is relaxing a little bit. Business is a little slow, especially in the US, but business is picking up. There was no world wide meltdown.

Is this true? If so, how much credit should Obama get for keeping things from going over the cliff?

Haven't you heard? Obama took a bad economy and made it worse. Senator Jim Demented said that this morning. I heard him.

on September 10, 2001.

masked the consequences of the collapse of the manufacturing economy for the last 30 years. There is a way out of this, but it will take time. The good news is that the rest of the world seems to be in better shape.

Russia is doing a stimulus, China has rioting over jobs lost and is doing a stimulus, Europe has a better safety net but reading the financial news it does not seem like there is a recovery there yet. I think we have the thinnest of scabs over the bleeding and whether it holds and healing commences remains to be seen. If this pandemic disrupts things in the fall the forecast decrease in GDP for most countries that I have been reading about if so, may be enough to push things over the edge. I think it will be a very interesting winter.

The AHs who decided the CEOs weren't making enough profits and needed to get cheaper labor. May all those who pushed for this be damned.

I don't know enough about economics to say that it's anything he has done, but I think that the whole whirlwind of emotion of President Obama being elected has had a significant impact. Emotions drive crazy, and if McCain had been elected I think a lot of people would have thought it was four more years of Bush. While Obama might not have stopped the supermen from robbing the world blind, I think his election instills a tad, and I do mean a tad, of public confidence that there is a new sheriff in town.

There is another test in play here. If the systems put into place after the Great Depression have been totally gutted, then Obama won't make much difference because the lifespan of this thing will exceed his term and without WWIII , well we don't even want to consider the "benefit" of another world war. But I think that the combination of the remains of the Roosevelt systems and precedents and Obama's pretty slick grasp of both the problems and the emotions involved will add up to good.

None so far, I think. It's difficult to judge exactly how much effect he's had on the US economy as a whole, yet; it's even more difficult, if not impossible, to judge how much effect he's had on just an individual company, if the only evidence you have is a simple correlation.

Although this is hard for most average Americans, I think the solution is to not judge what Obama's effect on the economy yet. As they say, hindsight is 20/20, and is much easier when there aren't people yelling from all sides of the isle, trying to win the debate for their side. Be patient, we can't judge anything yet.

EDIT: Although I personally think Obama's plan will be a great help. Time will tell.

I HATE the people who, in exchange for filling their pockets, destroyed our country's economy.