The election of Barack Obama held a lot of promise for a lot of people. “Hope” and “Change” were the big buzz words. After eight years of an abysmal Bush administration that resulted in unprecedented public debt, endless and unproductive wars, unlimited increase in government power, lobbyists run amok, and lax regulation of corporate power and abuse, a new dawn was about to begin.

Here we are a year after the election and what has demonstrably changed? Preciously little. In fact, in many ways things are much worse.

On the economy:

Granted Mr. Obama inherited a mess. Years of deficit spending had driven the public debt to the highest levels since World War II (as a % of GDP). The poorly handled financial crisis and rescue packages had further compromised the federal budgets. And the Federal Reserve, a principle culprit of the economic mess via injection of excess liquidity into the economy for years, was up to its old tricks. Chairman Bernanke, a supposed scholar of the great Depression, decided to combat the economic meltdown caused by excess debt by, you guessed it, introducing more debt.

So what has Obama done? He promoted Geithner from the New York Fed to Treasury Secretary and kept Bernanke, in essence he kept the same team in place. Bernanke of course, was infamous for being totally behind the curve on the impending economic disaster..

Since becoming president, Obama’s fiscal record has become even worse than Bush’s. Both deficit and debt have spiraled even higher with no end in sight as trillion dollar plus deficits are now projected for the next 10 years.

The stimulus measures have produced no notable effect on unemployment, in fact 10.2% are officially unemployed with the shadow statistics indicating a figure around 17.5% and growing.

On the wars:

Status quo. No troops have been removed from Iraq and Afghanistan looks to be ramped up even further. Gitmo is still in place, gays are still being fired, and the military budget machine continues unabated.

Now clearly, some things take time, yet evidence of concrete measures with promise of results are woefully missing.

In fact, the greatest victim in all this is the truth. Americans are not being leveled with. There is an utter lack of transparency of information.

The two party system is indeed behold to one primary constituency: Those who pay the most. Banks paid millions in form of donations and have arguably gotten the most benefit. Lobbyists from health and pharmaceutical companies have ensured that the most expensive healthcare system stays that way. It is no accident that MRIs cost $1,700 in the US, but only $160 in Japan (NPR). Too many vultures at the trough.
Will military spending ever be cut? Both parties ensure that it won’t. Americans spend $700 Billion per year on the military, 7 trillion dollars per decade. Is it any surprise that health care and education seem unaffordable?

So Americans are subject to an instigated theater of emotion with precious few facts. It does not matter who is in charge. Republicans and Democrats have monopolized a political system that is based on the flow of money. He with the most money wins. Hence, change is only visible at the narrowest of margins, while the country heads toward financial oblivion.

Americans have been had. And many of them know it.