100 Days of Barack Obama: Unexpected Choices, Uncertain Future?

Even before day one of his Presidency, Barack Obama was setting into motion his program of deep change. It is becoming increasingly difficult to predict the outcome of changes already in process, and it is clear that President Obama's future actions may be unexpected by most Americans. How does the average family plan basic life events in these confusing times?

Americans are learning to expect the unexpected. If the government has had a hand in your company's financial stability, you may find that President Obama, Congressman Barney Frank and others have a direct role in setting your salary and directing your company's operations. If you have a sick child, you may find that even with a reasonable income the government is increasingly ready to help you.

Financial markets and foreign governments are learning that U.S. policies are subject to radical and unexpected change, and the balance of social and environmental policy and support of business interests is shifting quickly.

Trying to understand the basis of change in America requires a shift in thinking that may be hard for most Americans. As Russia and China are turning increasingly to 'market forces' to balance their economies, President Obama and Congressional leaders are forcefully correcting America's economic detour and implementing a wide variety of social policies based more on central control and decisions made by government officials.

Even years before President Obama took office, economic forces were being shaped by government policy originating in Congress which included mortgage banking based on providing homes for more Americans, rather than the existing practices of financial services companies in evaluating risk. During the same time, other segments of the financial market went largely unwatched by the same Congress, increasing wealth for those who rode the 'hedge funds' and other emerging investment vehicles including Bernard Madoff's now-exposed Ponzi scheme.

Speaking with Chinese students, the foreign concepts of capitalism have been a challenge for them to adopt and understand, since their culture as they have lived it has not given them a sense of how free markets operate, they have only textbook knowledge.

Here in the U.S., our intuitive understanding of economic principles and market forces as we have lived them may not help us as our government guides us into what for us are uncharted waters, based on philosophies and principles that are are more academic than practical, although for many they also have a strong basis in compassion or other social principles. We are also not used to such centralized control of our individual destinies on so many levels.

In President Obama's first 100 days, he has shown us a radically new way of living, and for at least the next four years we will develop a new understanding of it. We will be challenged to make our basic life choices, from having children to planning a retirement, not knowing how the economic crisis will play out, but also not having a natural understanding of how our society will function in crisis or in growth. Change has come, and Americans are beginning to find that it is in fact a radical change in our entire culture.