It's been the first real test of Baback's charisma and powers of persuasion this week.. His entire Presidential future depends upon his ability to show the American man in the street that he is capable of getting bi-partisan support for an unprecedented injection of government money to re-boot the structure of the US economy..
It's not the deal the president started with.. the Senate and the House have each had their turn at whittling away the actual figures for the final Bill..
The plan now seems to have satisfied both the Senate and the House.. A final vote will likely take place in the House a day after it's gone through the Senate.. The whole process should be done and dusted, as is sometimes said, by the end of the week..
Then we'll get to see the domestic economic skills Barack and his team..

A warning from the governor of the Bank of England.. Mervyn King was not particularly optimistic about the future, saying that the UK is in 'deep recession' and cutting interest rates may turn out to be insufficient to stimulate public investment and encourage foreign expansion to Britain..
The Bank now forecasts a 4% shrink in the British economy this year..
And the frightening thing is, that among the EU member countries, Britain is considered to be a relatively 'stable' country..
One wonders when the expression 'global depression' will become acceptable..

Ireland.. with a forecast of a 5% drop in GNP for this year.. has announced that they too have had to jump on the bandwagon.. and prop up two of the county's major banks.
From China to India.. from Britain to the United States.. governments are mortgaging their grand children's legacy with an amazing profligacy, with what appears to be a complete lack of concern..
And if the separate governments are saying, as in the US, that we can expect to see some improvement in the credit market by July.. they must think their respective electorates can be drawn into this Pollyanna world. It certainly speaks volumes as to what our legislators think of our collective intelligence..

Zimbabwe's new Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, has vowed to stabilise the country's shattered economy and end political violence as he was sworn in as that unfortunate country attempts to set a system of checks and balances in place..
Ironic.. that Morton was sworn into Office by his long-time enemy Robert Mugabe..
Mind you, it has yet to be seen how well this power sharing scheme will stand..
Mugabe is not going to go quietly into that good night.. He has managed to keep control of the Army.. and Morton's going to be living with his own sword of Damocles inches away from his skull..

And the Game unfolds..