It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it. - Upton Sinclair

Obama is president because he had Wall Street's backing early.  It's why he chose Geithner.  It's why the response to the crisis wasn't ever going to be strong.  In fact, as corrupt as Congress is, it was still willing to take harsher steps against the banks than the WH (see, for example, here).  Obama was always going to choose the banks over the people.  (see, e.g,, here).

"At the beginning of your term you spent a lot of time talking about job creation and the road to economic recovery," the questioner told the president. "Since then, we've seen the conversation shift from that of job creation and economic recovery to that of spending cuts and the deficit."

"I would love to know your thoughts on how you're going to balance these two going forward, or even potentially shift the conversation back," she added.

Obama said that unless lawmakers get the country's long-term finances under control, more immediate economic gains could prove difficult.

"If we don't have a serious plan to tackle the debt and the deficit, that could actually end up being a bigger drag on the economy than anything else," Obama said. link

In order to reduce the deficit, we need to lower the tax rates for corporations which might create jobs.

U.S. companies might hire more workers if the U.S. were to cut the tax rate on cash that companies bring home from foreign subsidiaries, PepsiCo Inc. Chief Executive Officer Indra Nooyi said.
....
As part of their budget plan passed last week, House Republicans want to cut the corporate tax rate to 25% from 35%. The Obama administration and many Democrats also are looking to slice the current rate, but not as much. link

The financial crisis of 2008 was a stupendous event, and it's frankly stunning to me how few people seem to have responded to it in any substantive way. Occasional throat clearing aside, it's been business as usual for a huge chunk of the political, business, and pundit class, especially on the right.

Will there be enough of such voters this time for Obama to win?  Or will there be more like me, who -- as I said in the debate -- can be won to vote, and to vote for Obama, if he would get rid of Geithner, et al.?  Their school of thought on economics, and Obama's unthinking fealty to their thinking, is exactly what worried me most in 2008.  Now it's 2011, and he has learned nothing.

I cannot take seriously the idea that the worst thing that has happened in the past three years is that government got bigger. Or that money was borrowed. Or that the number of people on food stamps and unemployment insurance and Medicaid increased. The worst thing was that tens of millions of Americans -- and not only Americans -- were plunged into unemployment, foreclosure, poverty. If food stamps and unemployment insurance, and Medicaid mitigated those disasters, then two cheers for food stamps, unemployment insurance, and Medicaid.

it should have changed your mind at least a little bit about something.