It looked like it was business as usual for President Barack Obama on the first day of his Martha's Vineyard vacation, as he spent five hours golfing with Robert Wolf, president of UBS Investment Bank and chairman and CEO of UBS Group Americas. Wolf, an early financial backer of Obama's presidential campaign, raised $250,000 for him back in 2006, and in February was appointed by the president to the White House's Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Economic recovery for whom?

All is not well in Obamafanland. It's not clear exactly what accounts for the change of mood. Maybe it was the rancid smell emanating from Treasury's latest bank bailout. Or the news that the president's chief economic adviser, Larry Summers, earned millions from the very Wall Street banks and hedge funds he is protecting from reregulation now. Or perhaps it began earlier, with Obama's silence during Israel's Gaza attack.

Whatever the last straw, a growing number of Obama enthusiasts are starting to entertain the possibility that their man is not, in fact, going to save the world if we all just hope really hard.

Bloomberg News estimates $12.8 trillion (U.S.) as the amount of financial support already given by the U.S. authorities to its banking system. So far, this led to no meaningful improvement in credit conditions, or bank lending.

The man overseeing this stupendous bailout -- $12.8 trillion represents about 90 per cent of the value of U.S. production last year -- is Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke, the U.S. central banker.

Suppose he does not know what he is doing?

Taxpayers' bailout money for AIG bonuses has rightfully provoked a massive backlash against AIG, Wall Street, President Barack Obama and his economic advisers, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers. The U.S. public now owns 80 per cent of AIG. The outrage is bipartisan: Iowa Republican Sen.

The American economy went into recession just over one year ago. The OECD has just announced that for the last part of 2008, the OECD area suffered the largest average quarterly downturn in GDP (1.5 per cent) since it began to keep records in 1960. As the U.S. downturn goes global, the rest of the world looks to the U.S. for clues as to what to expect next.

To arrest economic decline, the American central bank, the Federal Reserve Board, with assistance from the U.S. Treasury, has increased its lending to the financial sector by a stupendous amount.

The beaming face of Barack Obama -- whether surveying adoring fans on Parliament Hill or bestowing on Ottawa shopgirls an experience they can dine out on for the rest of their lives -- was oddly reminiscent of Hugh Hefner's line about feeling like a kid in the world's biggest candy store.

Ottawa may seem more like Canadian Tire than a candy store, but one could well imagine Obama thinking: And they pay me for doing this?