Restitutor Orbis

Reuters is reporting that people are becoming more optimistic about the US economy, with "Two-thirds of respondents said they approved of Obama's overall job performance."

Pretty impressive for the first hundred days, and we still have three weeks to go. Obama was handed what most people felt was an impossible job. But we all knew the real trick was changing an attitude of despair into an attitude of hopelessness. This has been Obama's strength all along, and he has once again shown his very real skills in this area. Roosevelt, I think, would be proud.

People won't spend if they're insecure about the economy, and we need to spend to turn things around.

More from the poll:

The number of people who said they thought the United States was headed in the right direction jumped from 15 percent during the final days of Republican President George W. Bush's administration in mid-January, before the inauguration, to 39 percent today, the newspaper said.

The number of respondents who said the country was headed in the wrong direction dropped to 53 percent from 79 percent.

The jump from 15% to 39% is huge, given the current state of affairs. People are still losing their jobs; businesses are still failing, but there is hope that things will get better. The seeds of improvement have been sown. Now we will have to wait to see them take root and grow.

Another telling statistic: "According to the poll, 20 percent of Americans now think the economy is getting better, compared with 7 percent in mid-January."

Also in the news is a CBS poll that shows Obama's approval rating hitting a new high - 66%.

Sixty-seven percent say world leaders respect Mr. Obama, while 18 percent say they do not respect the president. That's a sharp contrast to the response when this question was asked about Mr. Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, in July 2006: Just 30 percent then said the president is respected by the leaders of other countries.

Mr. Obama's overall approval rating, meanwhile, has hit a new high of 66 percent, up from 64 percent last month. His disapproval rating stands at 24 percent. Nearly all Democrats and most independents approve of the way the president is handling his job, while only 31 percent of Republicans approve.

The complete poll is available here as a pdf file.