Part I:

Part II:

By Barack Obama

Thursday, February 5, 2009; A17

By
now, it's clear to everyone that we have inherited an economic crisis
as deep and dire as any since the days of the Great Depression.
Millions of jobs that Americans relied on just a year ago are gone;
millions more of the nest eggs families worked so hard to build have
vanished. People everywhere are worried about what tomorrow will bring.

What
Americans expect from Washington is action that matches the urgency
they feel in their daily lives — action that's swift, bold and wise
enough for us to climb out of this crisis.

Because each day we
wait to begin the work of turning our economy around, more people lose
their jobs, their savings and their homes. And if nothing is done, this
recession might linger for years. Our economy will lose 5 million more
jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink
deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse.

That's
why I feel such a sense of urgency about the recovery plan before
Congress. With it, we will create or save more than 3 million jobs over
the next two years, provide immediate tax relief to 95 percent of
American workers, ignite spending by businesses and consumers alike,
and take steps to strengthen our country for years to come.

This
plan is more than a prescription for short-term spending — it's a
strategy for America's long-term growth and opportunity in areas such
as renewable energy, health care and education. And it's a strategy
that will be implemented with unprecedented transparency and
accountability, so Americans know where their tax dollars are going and
how they are being spent.

In recent days, there have been
misguided criticisms of this plan that echo the failed theories that
helped lead us into this crisis — the notion that tax cuts alone will
solve all our problems; that we can meet our enormous tests with
half-steps and piecemeal measures; that we can ignore fundamental
challenges such as energy independence and the high cost of health care
and still expect our economy and our country to thrive.

I reject
these theories, and so did the American people when they went to the
polls in November and voted resoundingly for change. They know that we
have tried it those ways for too long. And because we have, our
health-care costs still rise faster than inflation. Our dependence on
foreign oil still threatens our economy and our security. Our children
still study in schools that put them at a disadvantage. We've seen the
tragic consequences when our bridges crumble and our levees fail.

Every
day, our economy gets sicker — and the time for a remedy that puts
Americans back to work, jump-starts our economy and invests in lasting
growth is now.

Now is the time to protect health insurance for
the more than 8 million Americans at risk of losing their coverage and
to computerize the health-care records of every American within five
years, saving billions of dollars and countless lives in the process.

Now
is the time to save billions by making 2 million homes and 75 percent
of federal buildings more energy-efficient, and to double our capacity
to generate alternative sources of energy within three years.

Now
is the time to give our children every advantage they need to compete
by upgrading 10,000 schools with state-of-the-art classrooms, libraries
and labs; by training our teachers in math and science; and by bringing
the dream of a college education within reach for millions of Americans.

And
now is the time to create the jobs that remake America for the 21st
century by rebuilding aging roads, bridges and levees; designing a
smart electrical grid; and connecting every corner of the country to
the information superhighway.

These are the actions Americans
expect us to take without delay. They're patient enough to know that
our economic recovery will be measured in years, not months. But they
have no patience for the same old partisan gridlock that stands in the
way of action while our economy continues to slide.

So we have a
choice to make. We can once again let Washington's bad habits stand in
the way of progress. Or we can pull together and say that in America,
our destiny isn't written for us but by us. We can place good ideas
ahead of old ideological battles, and a sense of purpose above the same
narrow partisanship. We can act boldly to turn crisis into opportunity
and, together, write the next great chapter in our history and meet the
test of our time.

The writer is president of the United States.

I found this link via Twitter when one of my friends sent it out–and it is a must-read for everyone:

What the Richest Men in the World Don't Know
By Barbara Goldsmith
The best way to learn financial ethics is to study the lives of the nine wealthiest financiers of 1923. A quarter century later, they were all either dead, broke, or in prison…

Read full post here…

From today's Wall Street Journal…

Consider Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, who used a London speech on
Tuesday to pat the Fed on the back as the Horatio at the Bridge of this
panic. This would have been appropriate for a Princeton seminar a
couple of years from now. Amid the current uncertainty, however, he
succeeded mainly in suggesting that the financial system is in even
worse shape than we thought, the President-elect's "stimulus" isn't
sufficient, and thus more of Mr. Bernanke's policy magic will be needed
to save the day.

"With the worsening of the economy's growth
prospects, continued credit losses and asset markdowns may maintain for
a time the pressure on the capital and balance sheet capacities of
financial institutions," he declared. "Consequently, more capital
injections and guarantees may be necessary to ensure stability and the
normalization of credit markets." Message: There's more mayhem to come,
but don't worry, the Fed can keep printing money and buying private
assets. No wonder the world is scared half to death.

And they are the ones lobbying to control our government.  Remember that, people.

In 3M Co.'s quarterly update this month, Chairman and CEO George
Buckley talked about how the company had closed 16 plants over the last
year and a half, has been drawing down inventory and cutting capital
spending.

"Is this healthy?" he said on the call. "All of us
acknowledge we're collectively making the situation worse, but I think
the first responsibility we have as leaders of companies is to make
sure that we ensure the health and survival of our own companies first,
not necessarily other people's companies, or, for that matter, the
whole U.S. economy."

Associated Press Article here.