"It's safe to say we have stepped back from the brink," Obama told a fundraiser in Beverly Hills. "There is some calm that didn't exist before."

But despite increasingly upbeat comments from policymakers, global markets have focused on the extra debt governments are taking on to fund their stimulus packages, ever since Standard & Poor's lowered its outlook for Britain's sovereign credit ratings to negative a week ago.

That prompted scrutiny of other major economies -- including the United States -- where concerns about the U.S. debt mountain sent Treasury prices and stocks tumbling on Wednesday.

Asian stocks fell in turn on Thursday and European bourses were expected to open lower, taking their cue from Wall Street's weakness.

Global markets are also watching developments in the U.S. auto industry, where General Motors Corp moved closer to filing the largest bankruptcy ever for a U.S. industrial company after a crucial bond exchange proposal failed.

GM said in a statement an offer to exchange $27 billion in bond debt for a 10 percent stake in a reorganized company by a midnight deadline had fallen far short of the 90 percent acceptance target.

I say Obama has to wake up because the middle and lower classes, as usual, are still getting the shit kicked out of them with no relief in sight.  Oh, the stock market went up a few hundred points the last month and a half, lets have a fucking party.  America still continues to BLEED jobs every month.  I do not care what economic model (the "free market" is horse shit by the way) you use, when unemployment continually goes up every month by about 500,000 the economy is bad. 

This is seriously the beginning of a new Gilded Age, if it every really ended.  The financiers are starting to make big money again while the little guy loses his job, house, car, sanity, etc.  The divide of rich and poor is expanding every day.  The political right loves to call Obama a Socialist because he is raising rich people's taxes 3%.  Hell, he should raise them 20% if you ask me. 

Obama and his supposed economic expert adviser, Geithner, are missing an oppotunity to reform the system of boom and bust.  Instead, they are starting to listen to the Beltway "conventional wisdom" idiots that the happy days are just over the horizon.  This in turn leads to a lifting of any urgency which leads to them taking their foot off of the gas pedal of change. 

I don't know, I'm starting to ramble.  All I know is that FDR tried to pack the Supreme Court when his New Deal policies were not going through.  What the hell is Obama doing?  Talking nicey nice to GOPers who created this nightmare.  That should solve everything.