I do not think the economy is going to get better anytime soon.  I do not think that President Obama will do anything that is really helpful.

I think he will make things much worse, though to be fair, not all of America's economic woes can be placed on his doorstep.  The strucutral flaws in our economy have been a longtime coming and finally broke out into the open.

We need to change our taxation structure from penalizing savings (and investment, the cornerstone of business growth), export more, and change much of our social habits to reembrace having families as opposed to living solely for creature comforts and mere individual gains.
 
For America to be great again rather than live on the fumes of past accomplishment, we have to collectively change much of our outlook and definitely change the outlook of Washington D.C.

As always, Spengler from First Things shows us a myriad of reasons why the next decade may well be, and as things stand today will be, a long hard slog absent dramatic shifts in attitudes and policy.

"And my Top 10 Reasons to fade the recovery appeared yesterday on my “Inner Workings” blog at Asia Times:

10) There is no recovery at all in Europe. European growth ground to a halt during the fourth quarter and German busines confidence unexpectedly fell in February.

9) China won’t collapse, but government efforts to stop overheatingby raising reserve requirements make clear that the world’s second-largest economy can’t be the locomotive for world growth.

8. Greece and its prospective rescuers in the European Community are at loggerheads over conditions for EC help. “Greece faces several important challenges in the coming days, including an expected bond auction, a planned general strike on Wednesday, and a visit from European Union officials that began Monday, aimed at pushing the country to take tougher steps to rein in its budget deficit,” WSJ reported today.

7. State fiscal crises continue to worsen. “Doomsday is here for the state of Illinois,” California’s last set of cosmetic measures do little to address a $20 billion deficit, Baltimore has no idea how to close a $120 billion deficit. On top of this year’s $200 billion deficit, states face a trillion-dollar shortfall in pension funds.

6) Commercial real estate is nowhere near bottom, with some sectors (e.g. hotels) at delinquency rates of nearly 10%. Credit Suisse says that delinquencies could reach $60 billion.

5) Regional banks continue to drop like flies, with 702 banks holding assets of $403 billion on the danger list.

4) Bank credit continues to shrink. Total bank credit is still falling at a 5% annual rate, an unprecedented decline

3) What bank credit is available is funding the US Treasury deficit in the mother of all crowdings-out, replacing commercial loans on banks’ balance sheets

2) Industrial production has bounced of the bottom, but manufacturing is only 15% of US employment

1) Employment won’t come back. Today’s consumer confidence number is one more nail in the coffin of exaggerated hopes for a cyclical recovery"