I did not mean to come down to hard on some of these topics. I hear that there is good and bad Taliban, but what does that mean? Is there actually good and bad Taliban, or is their strategy for one part to play nice while the other part wages war and supports other extremists; the good part allows them to buy time for the bad part to wreak havoc and try to distabilize our efforts and those of allies?
on banking and market regulation, it may be better that the focus on controling balance sheets and portfolio make ups more so than individual financial instruments. The reality is that you want risk and instruments that hedge or reduce risk of negative/or no return. it may be better to limit any one companies exposure to the amount of them it can carry at one time, or force a certain amount of cash or cash equivelents that have to be part of the balance sheet for a certain amount of complicated assets (derivatives, MBS', etc.). But even those capital requirements may need to be fluid (allow for some time to gain resources) in order to allow strategies to play out.That fluidity can allow risk to take place. If we can reasonable allow risk to investors and market players to exist without it having to endanger the entire market, we may be able to keep risk taking active to a degree that it aids in financing new industries (clean enegery), helps maintain jobs by allow expansion and investment, etc.
Even before the election, your campaign stood for something to alot of people around the world, Mr. President. Whether you want that attention or not, you are the only person in the world that could have made that Cairo speech, and lived a life that personifies some aspects of it. We Americans tend to not see beyond that next election, 5-yr plan, etc. But older countries can not avoid the fact that 'setting a tone for the future' is no small thing. Congradulations, Mr. President....you might just catch Truman one day..... but not yet (smile).
