indignation

This inauguration cover of The New Yorker made conservative heads explode. As one Facebook friend put it, “Another example of the media setting unbelievably high expectations.”

First of all, the cover is only drawing a comparison between President Barack Obama and President George Washington because both were firsts. (Pssst. Barack Obama is a black man and no black person has ever been president.)

But on to the expectations. Granted, some people have ridiculous expectations of our new president. FOX News (of course) had video of some woman saying an Obama administration would mean that she can buy a house and afford groceries and have affordable health care. Those may be unreasonable expecations.

But what are those expectations born from? Could it be that eight years of a dismal administration, compromised values, ballooning government, warrantless wiretapping, war, opaque governing, mishandled disaster relief, culminating with our economy in the toilet, have led us to some pie-in-the-sky dreams?

I think a lot of folks are hoping an Obama administration just gets us back where we were before the Bush administration. It was a time of prosperous peace. People had jobs. Government was more open. We weren’t being spied upon. We did not torture people. Are those expectations so unrealistic?

Think about it this way: It’s the starving person that dreams of a four-course meal, but will be more than happy with a bowl of soup. Soup is on!

 Follow me on Twitter.

I am a sucker for lists and I saw a beautiful one yesterday. The master of the business list, Fortune magazine, published its list of the 21 dumbest business moments in 2008.

Considering what a huge story business was last year, it’s amazing they were able to pare it down to 21. And these are beauts.

You’ve got the auto industry executives begging for money after arriving in their private jets. You’ve got the economic bailout. And you’ve got a GM executive calling global warming a “crock of s*#t.” (A former boss of mine was as the closed-door event where that was uttered and broke the story.)

It would be nice to think that dumb things won’t happen in 2009. But I’ll do them, you’ll do them and the people in power will do them. Will anyone be able to learn from them? Let’s hope so.

It must have been optimism of the New Year that led to a 250-point jump in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Maybe it was Liza Minelli (shiver) ringing the closing bell.

Whatever the reason, don’t start spending you’re rediscovered retirement wealth. The climb out of this bear market is going to take a lot longer than the slide into it.

Pundits are so eager to find some shred of good economic news. We need it. We’ve been bombarded with how horrible the economy is.

Unfortunately, nothing is going to happen until banks loosen their purse strings and people start spending money again. But don’t look at me. I’m just as nervous as everyone else.

We may not get to see real recovery until a large capital spending program goes into effect. You small-government fans may not want to hear that, but the federal government is the only one with any cash to spend. As long as they don’t give it all away in loan guarantees and bailouts.

We’ll stay tuned.