While most Americans understand what happened in each crisis, they have difficulty accepting the length of time it will take to fix these problems. It took ninety days before BP managed to stop the flow of oil from the broken well and it will take years to repair the environmental damage. It took six months before the stock market recovered from the 2008 financial panic and it will take years to climb out of the hole caused by the collapse of the era of easy money.
In both crises there was an underlying cancer having deeper roots than might be suspected giving the primary failure. The BP/Gulf oil debacle was the consequence of America's addiction to fossil fuel and our childlike faith in technology the belief that if it's possible to drill a deep well then it must be safe. The current recession has a simpler and far more disturbing genesis: the failure of American capitalism.
While the Obama Administration appears to recognize America's addiction to fossil fuel, as well as our naà ¯ve faith that technology will solve all our problems, it's not clear they are prepared to brand contemporary capitalism as a failure. That's not surprising; it's similar to asking a public official to declare there is no Santa Claus. It flies in the face of a cherished myth. For many Americans it is unthinkable that the unfettered marketplace will not solve all our problems or that contemporary capitalism has brokenn its promise to provide a good life for all.
But that's what has happened. Over the past thirty years, the American economic system has been tilted in favor of the rich and, in the process, democracy morphed into plutocracy. As a consequence, the consumer economy -- which presupposes a reasonable distribution of wealth and income had to be held together by smoke and mirrors; most American went deeply into debt so they could maintain their standard of living. Now the diabolical charade has ended, but it's left a legacy of pessimism and distrust. The economy is fractured.
Repair requires fundamental structural changes such as breaking up the big banks and a massive redistribution of income. But that's not going to happen soon. Americans know they have cancer but they are nowhere near agreement on the course of treatment.
In the meantime, the US will go down a losing track. And Barack Obama's job, if not impossible, will be very, very difficult.
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