Stimulus: Create an International Emergency Response Force

President Obama's New Deal has paved the way for a $787 billion economic stimulus package. The goals include: improving infrastructure, investing in energy projects and providing financial relief for families via tax cuts and increased government benefits. These are admirable domestic goals and should be pursued, but there are also international pursuits that would achieve the goal of stimulating the US economy while at the same time saving thousands, if not millions of lives and also demonstrating a true leadership role against protectionism in the process. I am proposing the raising, training and sustaining of a truly international emergency response force, open to citizens of all nations.

The creation and maintenance of such a force is badly needed on both humanitarian and economic grounds in order to provide effective, prevention based response to genocide, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity and natural disasters. Such a force, funded principally by the US, might need to operate under the umbrella of the United Nations, but must not be constrained by the existing veto arrangements that prevail in the Security Council and that make that body so ineffectual.

The force would comprise not only military personnel, but also administrators, police and medical teams. With the bulk of funding coming from the US, raising, training and sustaining such a force could achieve similar positive results in terms of stimulating the US economy, as did World War II - which most historians agree had a more concrete impact on the economy than Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal in the1930s.

Such a force, operating within an appropriately crafted mandate, would not only save countless lives, but according to the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, would have saved the international community nearly $130 billion of the $200 billion it spent on managing conflicts in the 1990s by focusing on conflict prevention or early intervention rather than post conflict reconstruction.

Obama officials dragging the President down

Investors and Wall St are making clear their contempt for Mr. Obama's $1.2 trillion bailout of banks. The Dow is down 15% since inauguration day and although it is reasonable to claim this economic crisis was inherited; the markets are now dropping further every time an Obama official makes a public statement. Inheritance can't be blamed for that.

The gang of egg-heads that President Obama has surrounded himself with are showing all the measured resolve of a deer in the headlights; and the nation is starting to panic. Mr. Obama's first seven weeks in office have been substantially eclipsed by a series of awkward and unfortunate blunders - which sadly has put his well publicized poise and prestige to the test. Only seven weeks in...and already there is widespread talk about him being unable to walk the walk and being a single termer. The disorganized and undeserving Republicans must be rubbing their hands with glee.

First came the stimulus package, which should have been a clearly focused parcel of initiatives aimed at only one thing - combating the economic meltdown. But instead what we got was a bloated potato sack full or earmarked programs which will surely be the shame of House Democrats for a long time to come.

Next came Mrs. Clinton's gaff burdened trip through Europe. If we believe that the rate at which a politician matures is directly proportional to the embarrassment they can tolerate, then Mrs. Clinton is maturing nicely - leaving behind a string of fumbled Russian translations, mispronounced names, incorrect historical assertions, and diplomatic faux pas. The foreign policy-watching public are definitely nervous.

Then comes Mr. Geithner and Mr. Orszag onto the scene. These two youthful looking economic whiz kids instilled about as much confidence in me as they did in Wall St, with their timid half-measures to restructure debt-laden banks and their discerningly unstated descriptions of how these measures will lead to economic recovery.

And who will put their hand up to claim responsibility for advising Mr. Obama on matters of protocol associated with the ill-fated visit of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. What a clumsy fiasco that was - with all the pomp and ceremony of an unexpected visit from your mother-in-law. Alliances have been tested for less.

Let me finish by stating this is not an Obama beat-up; and criticizing the performance of the Administration should not be misconstrued as such; but if Mr. Obama doesn't get his staff performing like professional politicians they will be his undoing. And looking at who is waiting in the wings to take his place fills me with little enough confidence to genuinely wish Mr. Obama well!!

Read My Lips.....No Lobbyists!!!

So another “lobbyist” creeps into the Obama administration - doesn't anyone recall “No lobbyist will be allowed in my administration.” Is this just another case of "tell the people what they want to hear..." Don't you just love politicians

And it gets worse. This is actually the third lobbyist to be appointed to the Administration, but this one is a little different. Despite an impressive resume, Mr Neal Wolin, who is now the Prez's new top legal-eagle on economic issues has just left his post of President of the Hartford Financial Services Group Inc where he was so successful he has apparently been seeking to secure several billion dollars in bail-out money from the taxpayers of America.

If pulling in a failed financier to be the top advisor on economic issues doesn't tarnish the O-shine among the Hopier-and-Changier crowd, I think it should.