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Barack Obama was put into office with Wall Street hedging 57% financial support towards him (it is down to 37% presently). It was widely expected that he will partially channel FDR and do for American finance top heavy capitalist system what FDR did for industry top heavy capitalist system of yesteryear. Namely, restructure it to extend its lifespan for a few more decades. The Pragmatist assumed that the nationalist minded elite clans (such as General Electric shareholders, etc) that put the current figurehead in, recognize that their privileges are in danger and will thus tackle the crisis vigorously and seriously. To keep milking the cow one needs to keep it alive and periodically update the milking equipment. Any such restructuring would require simultaneous dual push for a solid baseline industrial policy and dramatically different approach to liquidity provision.
The state hasn't pursued major rebuilding of the manufacturing base along with major restructuring of the financial sector (that is sitting/managing on top of the industry) to the degree that The Pragmatist predicted. There have been some mild efforts and platitudes concerning emulating a corporate/labor/state collaboration system like Germany but nothing serious yet. We can assume that this nationally self sabotaging behavior is due to a combination of two factors:
1) Major shareholders behind both political wings of the oligarchy are substantially internationalized so that the whole world is now considered a cow and that saving the cow on the North American continent is not as big of an issue anymore. The world's economic/financial system that US built is seen as sufficiently institutionalized that profits can continue to be made in a multipolar world. Greater amount of capital and energy is seen as required to save the American empire than to keep looting it and extracting from it. Thus..
2) The elites are emotionally ambivalent about which side to back. This allowed the status quo alliance of regional and internationalist minded shareholders behind the republican wing to reorganize and stage a current comeback. The nationalist Northeastern Yankee faction of the oligarchy simply does not have enough interpersonal power to modify the federal state apparatus anymore. In that they are very similar to the reform minded faction in the Soviet communist party in the 1980s (which was always stifled in its restructuring attempts by the reactionary majority that just favored "tightening some nuts and bolts" on an airplane that was struggling to even fly horizontally, much less lift up). This is explicitly seen in Obama faction's weakness towards the military generals to the present day.
However, this dramatically changed with Citizens United, weakness, incredulity, and paralysis of New England power brokers, and seeming (at first glance irrational) inability of GOP backing elite clans to accommodate a new populist cultural paradigm shift (betting that they can use the crisis to hijack populism towards a new long term type of pro-corporate paradigm shift, similar to but qualitatively cruder than the one that began in early 1980s). At this point it is futile to disentangle multitudes of contributing factors that caused general paralysis ranging from 1) the passing ideological spasm of firebrush libertarianism cynically used by some elites in the last two years (similar to a rash of "genuine" communists in Soviet Union in the 1980s who insisted that the map is not the terrain) 2) need to continue to cause destabilization abroad to preserve force backed dollar hegemony (restructuring mentioned above would hinder militarism for a number of years) 3) A cancer patient type fear that the treatment is worse than the disease and that treatment will be even worse for social stability than kicking the can down the road.
We only have the present situation to work with.
In summer of 2009, it was predicted that major debt restructuring (well beyond the floating rate scheme planned currently) will need to occur before 2012 election or US risks keeping its economic system while seeing major changes in its political system. This will be tested in the next 4 years even if Obama is reelected. The Pragmatist's June 2009 (and admittedly safe!) advice to buy precious metals has generally proven correct with gold rising well above most asset classes from $950 an ounce to $1695 today and silver doubling from $15 to $32 today. Since austerity has never historically helped finances of countries, we will see where the can eventually lands.
It is time to put fiat where the mouth is with a very safe and tame prediction. Barring engineered economic jolts to help Romney or a paralyzing foreign crisis, Obama will probably narrowly win again considering roughly 1.5 million annual boomer mortality rate. Romney and Obama are tied now and are rather close in swing states. It appears that "the war on women" wedge issues will be utilized by the federal center of force to try to push Obama's coalition over the edge in terms of support. Considering that youth turn out will be depressed again, it is also a rather perverse race between amount of people recently disenfranchised by GOP state apparatuses, roughly 6 million boomers who died of old age in last 4 years (demographic that McCain won handily), and amount of minorities coming of voting age. Finally there is also the fact that it is a potent historic anomaly that Mitt Romney, a pure bred northerner, secured support of a party grounded in the south and it will be an even greater historical anomaly if he wins (looking at surprisingly regular election results going back to 1870s). The final 2 months should finally uncover some of that Obama spine as he uses federal apparatus backed stunts and that megaphone that was always at his disposal.
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