Bad News for Obama

The president of the United States keeps hearing more distressing news about the economic crisis in his country. In other words, the signals being relayed in Washington are not helping the fragile Obama.

While the economic crisis was the main reason for the Democrats’ losses to the Republicans in the midterm elections, it continues to take its toll throughout the United States. This issue would be enough to defeat Obama in the 2012 presidential election.

Labor Department reports show that more and more people are joining the ranks of the unemployed and applying for unemployment benefits in the United States. This is considered the worst news for Obama. The youth population is no longer supporting Obama and the Democratic Party, but rather is alienated from them as a result of the high unemployment.

The Labor Department has reported that the job market is slowly improving; nevertheless, the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits keeps rising. Some think tanks and international institutions believe that the temporary job growth in the United States is not in line with its usual upward trend. This means that Obama and the ruling party need to prepare to fend off another crisis soon — a crisis that would not be easy to tackle. It would be the best opportunity for the Republicans to score an easy victory over the Democrats. The only remaining hope for Obama is to see Sarah Palin rise as his main opponent in the upcoming presidential elections; he would handily defeat Palin. Polls have repeatedly proven the validity of this assessment. Thus, the establishment Republicans are pushing for a new face to emerge against Obama in the 2012 presidential elections.

While approaching the end of this fiscal year, the United Nations has warned in a report of an even deeper economic recession in the United States next year unless the necessary stimulus is injected into the economy. One might ask, in such circumstances, how Obama could tackle the existing crises on Wall Street. The current economic crisis in the United States is of such great magnitude and complexity that the Democrats thus far have failed even to acquire a clear grasp of the issues, let alone offer credible claims of tackling the problem, since they don’t even understand it completely.

In its report on the world economic outlook in 2011, the United Nations urges the U.S. Congress to pass additional stimulus packages for the U.S. economy in order to avoid another economic recession and an unemployment rate above 10 percent. So far, Obama and his people have failed to act on the U.N.’s advice.

The current U.S. household debt is nearly $14 billion — more than 20 times more than it was in 1970s. U.S. unemployment is nearly 10 percent, and if we add all the unemployed who have given up looking for a job and are not eligible for unemployment benefits, the unemployment rate would be approximately 20 percent. For the first time since the 1920s, the United States has been faced with long-term unemployment — something that the American people weren’t prepared for. Moreover, the American people have lost almost 100,000 employment opportunities in September alone.

The publication of these numbers make Obama’s prospects for victory in the 2012 presidential election increasingly doubtful. The president of the United States, since the defeat of the Democrats in the midterm elections, has learned that public opinion has shown no desire to steer their votes in favor of his administration. Thus, Obama is gravely concerned about his political future, which most likely will be a repeat of the fate of Jimmy Carter.