Obama seems to think he is dealing with the Great Depression. There is a lot of discussion about how Obama is using the excuse of a looming depression to implement his ambitious social spending program. Obama has not studied what actually happened after the stock market crash in 1929. The Democrats created a myth that Hoover did nothing after the market crash and the economic downturn, and demonized Hoover and Republicans for decades afterward. (History repeats, and Democrats are now demonizing Bush and Republicans.) Actually Hoover was quite active in 1930 and 1931 doing all of the wrong things. He raised taxes on the rich. He started ambitious deficit spending programs. He raised tariffs, slowing trade in the entire world, and causing the Great Depression. (FDR actually just continued what Hoover started, but put it on steroids, and it didn't work for FDR either.) Obama is doing the same things Hoover did; raising taxes, creating enormous deficits, and talking about restraining trade. Obama is arrogant enough to think he can make it work, even though it failed for Hoover and FDR. (Obama also surely knows that fascist socialism hasn't ever worked anywhere, but apparently thinks he can make it succeed.)