Obama has been working hard in his first week in office. He has already reversed some of the things Bush did. He has sent George Mitchell on a trip to the Middle East. He has gone to the Capitol to meet with Congressional Republicans to sell his stimulus plan. He has appeared on Arabic television to speak to Muslims. I don't agree with everything he has done but overall he has been much more engaging than Bush ever was. He appears to be very much in charge.

Two things I don't like about the economic effort so far. The stimulus plan spends too little on infrastructure, the one area I am all for spending. There are too many liberal spending plans in it. The Republicans are objecting and despite Obama's effort on Capitol Hill today, I don't think he will get much support from the Republicans on the bill. Of course, the Republicans can only complain as the only plan they have is more tax cuts. So even without bipartisan support, I think most of the country will be on Obama's and the Democrats' side. I don't like Tim Geithner being sec. of treasury. A guy who didn't pay his taxes running the IRS? Common! He maybe brillant but he was part of the Paulson team who worked out the bailout. If he has any great idea why didn't he present any a few months ago? He complained about China's monetary policy. In a time of global economic crisis, starting a war of words is not helpful. I think he was just trying to distract people from his tax questions. He does not seem like a good pick for Obama.

I am impressed by Obama's quick action on the Middle East. George Mitchell is a great pick although I don't know if he will step on Hilary's foot. By giving his first tv interview as president on an Arab network, it shows to the world how serious about the the region. He understands that unless there is peace between Israel and the Arab world, there will be no end on the war on terror. This is something Bush never understood. Instead of trying to be an honest broker between Israel and the Palestinians right away, he invaded Iraq. The road to peace is long and filled with traps but Obama has taken the first right steps.

Michael Jordan misses an uncontested dunk. Tiger Woods whiffs a tee shot completely. Tommy Lasorda fails to finish a plate of pasta. These are the things I thought about when Obama stumbled as he took the oath today. The most eloquent politician of our time has just layed an egg. Turns out it was John Roberts who messed up the oath causing a surprised Obama to stop in mid sentence. I hope that this is not an omen of things to come during Obama's presidency. I mean following a Republican who screws up which in turn makes Obama look bad.

I thought the speech was good but not great by Obama's standard. Of course he has set a very high standard. He said all the right things today and looked presidential but I don't think he aroused the people as he had done in the past. Of course, given the enormity of the challenges, it is hard to instill confidence in people on one speech alone. A lot of work ahead of him and his hair will grow even grayer.

I thought Rick Warren tried to be inclusive in his prayer. He asked God to forgive us if we do not treated everyone equal. This seems to be a bone thrown to the gay supporters. I think that shows Obama's idea of reaching out to conservatives is a good one. Warren did use Jesus' name at end of the prayer so it certainly was not a neutral religious theme. But he is a Christian preacher so I don't expect him to deviate much from his regular prayer. Overall a great day and I think the smooth transition of power with a huge celebration will make us look good in the eyes of the world.

Obama is getting criticism from both Democrats and Republicans for his economic stimulus plan. Everybody is talking like he or she knows the best way to turn around the economy. As I have said many times before: nobody really understands economics. It is not an exact science. It is not like chemistry where if you put 2 hydrogen atoms with an oxygen atom, you will always get a water molecule. Nobody knows what plan will get us out of the trouble we are in now, not even the best economists. So even as I don't agree with everything in Obama's plan, I find the criticisms to be of no value except for political purposes.

It is not surprising that the Republicans criticize the Obama plan. They are the opposition after all. It is also reasonable to question the huge amount of money that will be spent. We will run a big deficit with this. Of course we already ran a huge deficit under Bush so it is hard to say that the Republicans are the fiscal conservative they claim to be. And the bailouts, which are of questionable value, was the plan of the Bush's treasury secretary Paulson.

Pat Buchanan argues that Obama should act like Regan during the economic crisis of 1980s rather than like FDR during the Depression. It is a reasonable argument that we may not have come out of the Depression because of FDR's alphabet soup programs which we learned in high school history. Some historians have claimed that the Depression only ended with WWII. Buchanan said that Regan's supply side economics of tax cuts and letting the private sector do the work got us out of the crisis faster. But for every Buchanan, the Democrats can find an economist who says the opposite. For example the situation in 1929 was much worse than 1980s and if WWII stimulated the economy, it was the government and the military that did the stimulating by buying weapons, ammunition, planes, ships etc. In the 1980s the tax rate was cut from 70% to 28%. With the Bush tax cut it is around 35% now, so even if we cut to 28% like Regan did, do you really think it would stimulate growth quickly? And the Bush tax cut has not help the economy and has produce a record deficit. Regan did improve the economy but also left such a big deficit that Bush #1 had to raise taxes even though he had infamously said: "Read my lips, no new taxes." This led to his loss to Clinton.

So why do the Democrats want to go against their president? They don't like tax cuts and think that Obama is caving in to the Republicans by adding tax cuts and credits to his bill. They also want more spending, believing that 800 billions or so is not enough. I agree that tax cuts won't do much right now and tax rebates won't do anything at all. Witness the rebate last year which stimulated nothing. But spending for the sake of spending will not be effective. We are going into big deficit and our children will pay for it. Instead of arguing over how much, we should be looking into how we spend the money. As I said before, infrastructures in the country are in bad shape. So the money we spent there, even if doesn't help the economy as much as we hope, will at least provide us with better roads, bridges and communication systems.

Ultimately there is a limit of what anyone can do. It is usually being at the right place at the right time that makes one a hero. Alan Greenspan was the idol of both Republicans and Democrats when the economy was doing well. Now everybody says he made a lot of mistakes. Even he acknowledges of not seeing the disaster that was looming. FDR and Regan were both at the right place at the right time for them. Their plans were totally different. But they both were able to give confidence to the nation. I think that was the main difference between them and their predecessors, Hoover and Carter. If Obama can continue to inspire confidence his plan will succeed in the eyes of history, whether or not it is the right plan.

Here is my ranking of the top ten college football teams: 1. USC 2. Utah 3. Florida 4. Texas
5. Oklahoma 6. Alabama 7. TCU 8. Oregon 9. Penn State 10. Ohio State

This ranking is, of course, irrelevant as Florida has been declared the national champion. But I think if USC were to play any team tomorrow, it would be the favorite. Of course Florida would have had only 2 days rest but that's beside the point. USC was down in the polls and computer rankings compare to some of the one loss teams because the PAC-10 is down this year during the regular season. But its top 5 teams prove otherwise as they went 5-0 in the bowl games. Particulary Oregon's win over OK State was impressive. The Big12 was not impressive as Texas barely beat Ohio State which was clobbered by USC earlier. Texas Tech which beat Texas was humiliated by Mississppi. The SEC was not bad but even there Alabama was beat up worse by Utah than by Florida. Florida's win over OK was not that impressive. Lots of penalties and unexplainable timeouts and self destructions on both sides. So I vote Utah over Florida.

Penn State and Ohio State got into the top ten by default as a team like Texas Tech just looked terrible in its bowl game. The Big Ten does not deserve anyone up there really given its one win bowl record this year. They also had trouble beating their little brothers in the MAC. Witness Mich.'s loss to Toledo. And the MAC lost all of their bowl games against mediocre competition. I think the Big Ten needs to recruit more in Calif., Texas, and Florida if they are going to be competitive in the future.

Roland Burris showed up at the senate today to claim his seat. He was turned away. I am no constitutional lawyer but I don't see how he can be denied the seat he was appointed to. No matter what one thinks of Rod Blagojevich, by law he is still the governor of Illinois and he still has the right to appoint Obama's replacement. I mean, if tomorrow there is an emergency in Illinois and Blagojevich calls for the National Guard, would anyone try to stop that? There is no evidence that Burris is inovolved in the scandal so there is no legal reason for the Democrats to stop him from serving in the senate.

The Democrats are afraid that anyone appointed by Blagojevich will lose in 2010 to the Republicans. But it makes no sense for Harry Reid to come out right away and say they would not allow Burris to serve the moment he was appointed. Reid should have checked to see where they stand legally and don't threaten without the ability to back it up. If they would have offer a compromise of letting him serve out the term but promise not to run in 2010, then they can pick an untained candidate to run against the Republicans later. At 73 by 2010 Burris may accept that in the beginning. Now that he has to fight for his seat, somewhat embarrassinly, he may not take that compromise. If this goes to court I think Burris will win and then the Republicans can point out that even the Democrats don't want him in 2010. Plus, until this is settled, the Democrats will have one less vote at their disposal in the senate. I am sure Obama does not want more distractions in the beginning of his term as well.

Israel has been bombing the Gaza strip for the past 3 days, killing over 300 Palestinians. The Israelis claimed that they are going after Hamas who are shelling Israel daily. But of course many of the dead are not militants but civilians. This will undoubtedly lead to more deadly violence as Israeli soldiers may go into Gaza. This remind me of the blog I wrote in summer of 06 when Israel went into Lebanon to try to destroy Hezbollah. I wrote then that if we learn anything from history is that violence will not solve this problem. A diplomatic solution must be sought. But the Bush administration has not done anything in the past 8 years and is just waiting to hand things off to Obama.

Speaking of Obama, when he went to Israel before the election, he commented that if someone is shelling his house, threatening his daughters, he would respond just like the Israelis. This comment is being used by Israel to justify their attack. I agree with Obama that if I am living in Israel, I would feel the same way as the Israelis and want to go after Hamas. But nobody is saying what he would do if he was a Palestinian and is getting bombed by the much more powerful Israel air force. Most likely he would hate Israel and would do almost anything to seek revenge. So if Obama is even handed he would say how he feels if he is a Palestinian as well as an Israeli.

So where do we go from here? If Israel wants to destroy Hamas, it would have to go in with lots of soldiers. This risks heavy casualities and attack from Hezbollah from Lebanon. I think it will be a quagmire for Israel. You know, the Palestinian territory is divided into Gaza which is run by Hamas and the West Bank which is run by Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas is much more moderate and he has condemn Hamas for attacking Israel. So Israel and the U.S. should try to build up the West Bank as quickly as possible. If the Palestinians in the West Bank actually can thrive economically, it will show the Arabs that by cooperating their lives can improve. Declare West Bank as the independent Palestinian state. Then let the Palestinians from the West Bank bring aid into Gaza. Maybe they will be considered traitors but maybe a majority in the Gaza will turn away from Hamas. It certainly is worth trying.

In April of last year after the VT killing by a deranged Korean student, I wrote that Asians were afraid that they would be stigmatized by the ethnicity of the killer. I wrote that Asians had nothing to be ashamed of since the killer is the only person responsible for the tragedy, his ethnicity has nothing to do with it. Now the newspapers are saying that the Jewish community is worried that they will be stigmatized by the Madoff Ponzi scheme. Again I say this is an act by a deranged person who abused the people who trusted him. His religion or ethnicity had nothing to do with it.

The newspapers are saying that blogs are written about Jews being cheaters or that they are greedy and so they lost money. Well, there will always be racists who say such thing. But I am confident that the majority of Americans are fair-minded and that like the VT tragedy, no group of people will become stigmatized as a result of this. The truth is Wall Street is full of people of any race or ethnicity who are willing to cheat. The SEC is totally incompetent in regulating and thus help lead to the current financial crisis. As for the victims, most of the lost money belonged to charity foundations so most of the victims were not greedy people. Paraphrasing an old Chinese saying: people tend to cheat those who are familiar to them. This is a classical case of Madoff using his familiar status among other Jewish people to take advantage of them. Shame on him and the SEC.

Obama asked evangelist Rick Warren to give the prayer at his inauguration. This has led to condemnation from both the right and the left. Gay activists complained because Warren is against gay marriages. The right is angry at Warren for accepting the invitation of a liberal. All Obama is doing is fulfilling his pledge that he will reach over to the other side. Obviously he does not agree with many things that Warren advocates but he knows that Warren has also come out for AIDS causes, the environment, and improving poverty. I would rather that he hangs out and have discussions with Warren than have any association with Blagoyevich! The Republicans had accused Obama of being the most liberal senator. But judging by his cabinet appointments and including Warren in his inauguration, it seems to me he is trying to govern from the center. I hope he continues to do this. Bush failed to deliver on "compassionate conservatism". I know that Obama is to the left of center on most issues, but I hope he will deliver on "pragmatic liberalism".

Obama probably will not get in trouble with this Blagojevich affair. But you have to wonder how clean one can be coming from a stinky political scene such as Illinois. Five out of last ten governor got indicted? That is a higher percentage than baseball players on steroid. I think Illinois will beat out Louisiana for the Super Bowl championship of corrupt politics.

Obama seems safe from this episode because Blagojevich complained on tape, in colorful language, that the Obama team will not pay. But that means he must have talked to someone from the Obama team. That in itself is not wrong because you would expect Obama to have an opinion as to whom should be appointed to his vacated seat. Obama's response so far has not been very strong. He needs to be more transparent. How long does it take to question everyone that may have talked to Blagojevich? I know he says that the prosecutor does not want him to say anything yet. But it seems to me that Obama should have nip this whole thing quicker. He needs to devote his full attention to all the other problem he will face next month.

I am ambivalent about whether the automakers should get the bailout. I tend to believe that nobody should get a bailout. Look at Chrysler which got a big loan, merged with Mercedes, a foreign company, and now is asking for loan again. Didn't they learn the lesson the first time? I think the so-called concession by the UAW is cosmetic only and will not help much. I don't know enough about the plans put up by the Big 3 in front of Congress. But if the government is a bank, would it think that the automakers' plans would make them a good lending risk? I think not. I think there is a good chance that if one or two of the companies declare bankruptcy, they can start all over, with new salary scales, and be stronger in the future than if we just bail them out.

But I will say that the government has not been as fair to the automakers as to the financial industry. I don't see any concession from the salaries of people in insurance or banking before they got the bailout money. AIG had a big party right afterward. There was no business plans from the banks as to how they will spend the money. It is not clear to anybody what has been done with the money so far. So it is totally unfair that the government is so easy on Wall Street and much harder on Detroit. And I find it absurd for one Congressman after another berating the automakers for their failure to be in the black. The one institution in this country running the biggest deficit is the Federal government. While the UAW has at least made some concessions, I don't see any government unions at any level is willing to renegotiate anything. You see, if anyone is too big to fail, it is the government and that is why it is so difficult to make government better.

So I don't know what is the best. And I don't think anyone else does either. Even the best economists argue about whether government interventions are good. They still argue about whether FDR's New Deal help or hurt the depression. Some argue that only WWII got the economy back, not all the government programs. I don't know whether the bailouts will prove to be the right thing to do. I do think that Obama's idea of stimulating the economy by rebuilding roads and bridges is good. Even if it does nothing for the economy at least we will have new roads and bridges which we sorely need. To show how little anyone really understands the economy, I heard Ben Stein, a conservative economist on CNN, said that unlike people, who must balance their expenses with income, government can go deep into debt without raising taxes because it can print money. That seems like the stupidest thing I ever heard. And he is a CONSERVATIVE ECONOMIST. I mean, if that is the case then no Africa country will be starving. They can print money as well as we can. I also heard another economist said that bailout money is just us loaning money to ourselves. If that is the case, how come we have to owe money to China and Saudi Arabia? If supposedly smart money people can come up with statements like that, you wonder how we are going to recover.