Obama to Thump Osama

That Obama is now officially President elect to succeed George Bush was obvious.

First of all, age 47 is a nice number. By being the first Black president, the first African-American, Americans has finally shown that they have exorcised some ghosts of their own.

Clearly, they had wanted change, "CHANGE" in a big way after two terms of the Bush administration.

I know many people condemned Bush but somehow I like his decisive manner and firm leadership. Given the problems he encountered, it really wasn't easy.

I would also like to think that wherever you are and whatever you are doing, you always do need an element of luck and good timing.

It was during Clinton's administration that first words about Osama bin Laden came out but Clinton did not pursue it further. Sub-prime started and has its roots from there too with the doctrine of more deregulation. Hey, but then the economy was good so Clinton having his Lewinsky situation has no bearing whatsoever.

The Bush administration could have done something on sub-prime and saving Lehman Brothers could have averted the current climate that has permeated through the world. They didn't believe in intervention and that the free market knew best. Lehman was not just big but connected.

Come January, President Obama will have his hands full inheriting a financial mess, two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden still at large, Russia, North Korea would also be testing him, his resolve and leadership.

His victory was inevitable because the American people wanted change. They have been tired and fed up with the wars, sickened by sub-prime and now depressed by the financial crisis of epic proportion but I believe the USA will soon bounced back as despite their misgivings they are a great nation of benevolent , idealistic, creative and innovative people. Just look around you and you will find their Hollywood movies, songs and music, Coke, Kleenex, Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Xbox, etc., etc.

Obama is a face that can unite people based on his background and he should have the personality and temperament to match based on what I have seen of him on TV but the real work begins soon. As he represents change and the people trusted him, not just in America but in many other countries as well. He will win people over Osama. Yo but it ain't easy mate.

First things first, he has to whip and get the US economy cracking. There’s little that Obama could do but try to adopt the right policies and the rest of the issues will have to take its course. Sometimes, in fact quite frequently, the clamour for change is understandable but as soon as the dust settles, you may actually end up with the same things, slight changes or worse. The US and the world's problems are not easy.

In the last 100 years or so, the longest recession lasted 43 months during the great depression sometime from 1929 to arund 1933. Contractions some time after lasted some 16 months or more and the previous two in 1991 and 2001, lasted eight months.

The present scale of the crisis is of global proportion and may last up to a few more quarters or even up to two years. The good news are that now that the presidential elections are over, they can now focus on fixing the economy and a famous investor has just said that Singapore is in a good position to weather the storm given the strong foreign reserves and that Singapore would be the last country standing.

But life and the show must go on. Like a roller coaster, going down is very fast and frightening but the coming up is slow. Anyway, the world has been going on too fast too furious and now on medical leave. Being down and on medical leave means we should take this time to re-examine our priorities and look at things from different angles just like when we are really sick and on medical leave.

We wish President Obama and USA well as it is in our interest as the world's problems are not easy and let's hope he gives Asia fair deals and make changes that are positive and effective. As he has aptly said, "our stories are singular but our destiny is shared". Hey, this was my line too!