For the unemployed and the under-employed, a "jobless recovery" is no recovery at all.
To placate his base and the unions, Obama has appointed another Harvard Professor in Elizabeth Warren. Her role will be to assist in shaping the new Consumer Protection Bureau she herself proposed, the only financial reform that enjoys any popularity.
Warren is outspoken and supported by progressives, yet it is not clear if she will end up with any power to run what she had hoped would be an independent agency. It ended up being tucked away as a bureau in the Federal Reserve Bank.
As a result, some analysts fear Warren is being co-opted and politically neutered.
On the left, filmmaker Michael Moore speaks for many disenchanted Obama supporters who feel betrayed by his predictable turn to the safety of the mushy middle.
"Sadly, it's a situation the Democrats have brought upon themselves - even though the majority of them didn't create the mess we're in." he writes.
"But they've had over a year and a half to start getting the job done to fix it. Instead, they've run scared ever since they took power. To many, the shellacking they're about to receive is one they deserve.
"But if you're of a mindset that believes a return to 2001-2008 would be sheer insanity, then you probably agree we've got no choice but to save the Democrats from themselves."
His populist progressive proposals include indicting Wall Street criminals - a proposal I put forward in my film Plunder - and imposing a moratorium on home foreclosures, something President Franklin Roosevelt did as a part of The New Deal in the 1930s. (Some big banks have suspended foreclosures when it was revealed they were breaking the law in at least 23 states.)
Moore's views were not even present at a Washington demonstration backed by the unions in early October. Yet they are a long way from being implemented for at least four reasons.
First, they would represent a U-Turn for an administration that is nervous about appearing too anti-business and often postures left to move right. Obama's financial and health care reform - the administrations two big "accomplishments"- reinforced corporate power more than transforming it.
Jailing Wall Street is difficult because years ago big business lobbyists assured that deregulation - and its kissing cousin, decriminalization - would make prosecuting financial crime far more difficult.
And then there's the Congress under the sway of business interests with so-called "Blue Dog" Democratic conservatives, not to mention the anti-populist Republicans, able to filibuster and stop the kinds of changes Moore hopes for.
Oddly enough it was the banks that froze foreclosures in 23 states when fraudulent practices were unmasked,
As Naked Capitalism noted, "We've discussed the fact " that banks have become so powerful in Florida that they have managed to get what amount to kangaroo foreclosure courts created. Not surprisingly, the assembly line imitation of justice railroads borrowers, and prevents legitimate grievances from being heard.
"It turns out that banks in that state are so confident of their above the law status that they've also taken to casually changing the locks on and entering homes they don't own, meaning haven't foreclosed upon. This has become sufficiently common that the local press has taken notice."
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