From Charlie Rose’s site: “Reaction to President Obama’s speech in Cairo with Mohamad Bazzi, Roger Cohen, David Ignatius and Robin Wright.”

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This is a post I originally posted over at Yves Smith’s site, Naked Capitalism, a few weeks back just before the G-20 meeting. My intent here is not to malign Obama, Roosevelt or Hoover or make facile comparison but to identify important differences between the economic situation facing Obama and the one that faced [...]

In a dramatic speech on the edge of the G-20 summit on this first day of April, Fool was the watch word.  Barack Obama announced that he was changing course and, in an extraordinary development, has given the sack to two of his closest economic advisers as proof of this change.
“Look, I told the American [...]

In 2 hours I will be on BBC World News Today talking about the recent government actions involving the auto industry. Afterwards, I will have more to say about this here. In the meantime, here is what Barack Obama had to say.

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OK, well this is just an actor in a comedy skit from Saturday Night Live getting angry.  But, it is pretty funny.

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Barack Obama’s presidency will likely be decided by one single issue – his ability to deal with this financial crisis. With the release of his Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s Public Private Partnership Investment Program two months into his administration, we now have a fairly comprehensive view of Obama’s strategic approach. Will it work?

The foreign policy challenges facing the new Obama Administration have mounted significantly in recent days. On the back of civil unrest and trade sanctions in Mexico, a destabilizing power struggle in Pakistan, the latest news to hit in the last week comes from Russia.

Russia is going to re-arm. Nuclear detente is at an end.

Gillian Tett has written in the Financial Times that the Obama Administration is no talking to the Swedes directly about their solution to the credit crisis, suggesting a openness to potential banking crisis solutions. Next week, Bo Lundgren, now head of the Swedish debt office, but formerly a Deputy Finance Minister under Carl Bildt, is scheduled to meet with American officials in Washington. For those of us who see positives in the Swedish crisis solution, this is positive news.

I give Obama high marks for much of what he has accomplished in such a short span and the tone he has set. However, on the economic policy front, there have been lapses. This video suggests there have been many.

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Obama, Geithner Get Low Grades From Economists – WSJ
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The following is a translation of an article by Dr. Artur P. Schmidt, a well-known economist and economic journalist in Switzerland. Schmidt is also a keynote-speaker, who speaks regularly about new media, technology, future trends and knowledge creation.

Recently, he warned that Switzerland faces potential bankruptcy if it does not act to stem losses by its banks and in Swiss Francs in Eastern Europe.

Now he turns to the United States. While I do not agree with everything he writes (I see Glass-Steagall as less important than lack of regulatory oversight), the general tone and overall analysis is spot on regarding interest rates, bailouts and savings. He also has some interesting words to say about how the inflationary policy in Washington is making other nations pay for debts incurred in America.

I should warn you that this analysis at the end of this missive is ‘leftist’ in tone — quite a bit more than what you have seen me write. However, given the huge disparity in income that has built up over the last 35 years in the United States, Schmidt’s analysis does have merit. For my take on similar issues of wealth distribution, see my post, “A populist interpretation of the latest Boom-Bust cycle.”