The Nobel Peace Prize

The President says he is humbled and surprised at the award. He freely admits that the gap between his rhetoric and accomplishments is huge. The banking system is still running a muck e.g.Citigroup just sold its energy trading business rather than renege on the $98mm bonus it promised the head of the operation.

Barney Frank is gutting his consumer protection legislation in order to produce a bill that will pass. Not only pass; but appease the bank lobby and conservative democrats.

Treasury, the Federal Reserve and all the "watch dog agencies" continue to allow the financial industry to behave as they did before the meltdown instead of applying existing law and true over-sight. Unemployment will clearly go to 10-12% and last through 2010. Any one see any of the $700 billion stimulus money to date?

We remain in Afghanistan despite the fact that every occupying nation since Alexander the Great has failed to tame that place. An aside: one probelm is that no one seems to get that Afghanistan is not a country in the conventional sense. It is a loose federation of tribes led by strongmen with no allegiance to anyone but themselves and those they need to survive. Central Government, as we know it, is corrupt and ineffectual. We shall see this become Mr Obama's war very shortly.

Healthcare Over-haul? Let's Make Sense. Without competition,it seems that the Insurance Industry lobby has won the day. Coops either private or state run have not been studied fully and their success or failure determined. So why create a federal plan based upon inconclusive evidence? The only plan we have seen work on a national basis is Medicare. And it is not bankrupt nor about to be bankrupt despite what the fear mongers say. We must,however, stop using its revenues to fund other congressional projects!

The issue is that here again the administration is walking away from Tort Reform, Cost of Drugs and other major drivers of cost for any system in order to produce some acceptable legislation. It appears that Incrementalism is the strategy of choice for the Obama administration.

So much to do, so many competing agendas, yet a prize for being a man of peace. Perhaps it is as the Wall Street Journal and The NYTimes report: applause for the absence of George Bush in the world and a desire on the part of the Europeans to encourage the diplomatic efforts of the current president.

In any case,it seems he did not lobby for it and it was freely given. Let us respect our president be proud of this recognition of America and take him at his word: it is a call to action.