How bad was it when Obama walked into the White House?

With the banks near collapse and the stock market tanking and people losing their life savings, it was a pretty grim situation, as I recall.

Was there anyone in America that did not see the severity of the problem?

Did anyone not think we needed dramatic change and reform?

Let us try to put this in perspective and keep it in perspective for further discussions.

What should have been done, under the circumstances?

Nobody rational blames Obama for what happened before he took office. His own appointments, however, can't be blamed on anybody else. Obama chose to continue the status quo (where the bankers get to loot and pillage the wealth of the nation, unrestrained by law or conscience), and that is why he gets shit for the continuing crisis today.

He ran on change... didn't deliver it, where the economy is concerned. All we have been getting is more of the same.

Reminding those who may have forgotten - Geithner was head of the NY Fed - Wall Street's regulator - at the time all the excess and fraud was conceived, put into action, and made a crescendo.

Did everybody know how bad it was except the President??

just the usual politician's payoffs to his top backers at the expense of everyone else.

Geithner and Summers were picked because they were who they are. They were not picked at random. Either Obama himself was blissfully clueless about the causes of this crisis or he has knowingly chosen the cover-up-and-pray option. Either way, nearly two years in he no longer has any excuse to have these miscreants as his appointees.

I think there were a lot of people who didn't realize how close we were to an economic meltdown...and the recent election is proof positive. Maybe we should have let those too big to fail fail...let GM shutter the doors and drive the Michigan unemployment rate to 30% or let all the failed banks shutter their doors and let everyone's deposits and accounts vanish. Wanna bet you'd be hearing the teabaggers screaming for the government to do something. Total hypocrisy.

In many ways I felt what the administration did in its initial days were in the right direction. A stimulus and even the bank bailout that saved billions in individual assets. However with lack of re-regulation and oversight, we're back to bubbleland in many ways and an economy that has stagnated.

I'm with Krugman that the stimulus wasn't enough. There is a need for a new "works" program...to put government money into alternative energy as a stimulus for a whole new, American built and operated industry that would create millions of jobs. Or to lower lending rates to small business to spur development similar to what we saw in the 90s.

Hindsight is always 20/20 but I feel this administration did a great deal right when it mattered the most.

in September 2008 - just said no to the Bush Administration and Hank Paulsen when they were saying we had to pass TARP or the financial system would collapse.

Democrats could have said - No Way!

TARP & bailing out Wall Street are extremely unpopular. We are going to go with the politics instead of the Country. We'll let the entire system tank. People can blame Bush. Democrats would have even won bigger in 2008.

President Obama could have not worked with the Bush Administration until he was sworn in - that was exactly what FDR did and he didn't get sworn in until March.

We probably would have been in a Depression but we could have focused on blaming the Bush Administration.

Obama could have let GM & Chrysler go down - along with their suppliers - which would have damaged Ford also. Bailing them out wasn't popular and it didn't pay any political dividends even though it worked and saved over a million jobs.

Oh, sure, we would have had many millions of additional people unemployed but - hey, wouldn't that have been smart politically and that seems to be all that the Conventional Wisdom people focus on AND it seems like acting RESPONSIBLE doesn't get much credit with the mushy middle who like to throw temper tantrums at the voting booth.

The irony of McCain's "Country First" slogan along with how Republicans act is sickening.

Play politics like Republicans at the expense of the country's welfare or try do the right thing and pay the consequences. In retrospect, I think we needed 4 more years of total Republican control so there was no doubt whatsoever as to who really owned this mess. Instead, the corporate media misinforms the public and pins the problems on Obama and the Democrats while the perps are held unaccountable, even rewarded for putting party politics before this country's best interests. Only in America.