The Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffett, of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) spent a few moments on CNN answering some key questions about the economy at a Fortune Magazine Forum. He was asked where he would place the blame for the current financial crises being played out on the world stage, and he said he is not one to point fingers. There is plenty of blame to go around.

Initially Buffett quipped that "every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future." He went on to say that the everyone participated in the creation of the housing bubble with the unrealistic expectation that prices would continue to rise.

He summarized that home ownership is worshiped in the United States, and once cheap funding became available and prices started to rise there became the feeling that if you did not buy a home now you would be facing higher prices next year and perhaps less favorable interest rates as well.

Since Friday's surprise announcement that John McCain picked Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his VP, numerous unpleasant facts have emerged which may make McCain regret his hasty choice. And since she has not been officially nominated by the Republican convention, it's not too late for McCain to pick Karl Rove favorite Mitt Romney instead.

Here are some of the reasons that McCain should reconsider his decision:

• Hearbeat away. She has had very little experience governing and none with foreign policy. This would be fine if McCain was in robust good health. Unfortunately, that is not the case. She could actually become President and it is far from obvious that she has the most executive experience among all the potential VP candidates that might need to step in if McCain could no longer do the President's job.
• No longer a shoe-in for Evangelical vote. She was strongly supported by the Evangelical wing of the Republican party due to her religious beliefs and her decision to keep her fifth child after she learned it would have Down syndrome. But with her 17-year old daughter having a child, some might question how strongly Palin believes in abstention until marriage.
• Corruption concerns. It is not clear whether McCain knew that Palin was under investigation for firing a public safety commissioner who refused to fire her brother-in-law. And did he know that she denied involvement with lobbyists in an interview with Maria Bartiromo, even though a TransCanada lobbyist played a central role in getting a $500 million subsidy for that Canadian company to build a gas pipeline she was pushing?

Our government has been doing its share of bailouts in the last year. It put $29 billion of taxpayer money at risk to finance the takeover of Bear Stearns. It stands ready to use $800 billion to bailout Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE). And now General Motors (NYSE: GM) wants $50 billion in government guarantees to finance fuel efficient cars. I have been looking into the bailout issue and whether it is beneficial or a misuse of funds - and there is a lot of debate about this issue. These bailouts may make political sense but are they in the long-term economic interests of the country?

A colleague of mine who was a Budget and Cost Analyst for a top government agency has been thinking about the political aspect of bailouts and shared his thoughts with me. As he wrote, "It is a sure thing that either party could get votes from a bailout, but they might loose some as well. Where a party could really improve its position would be to support a bailout, but lose."

He suggests that this outcome would pay off in the short-run but could damage long-term economic outcomes. As he suggested, If the party supported a bailout but lost, "it could claim that it was trying to support the victims, but had been frustrated by the other party. And this could be used to promote the party for many years in efforts to get votes. While maneuvers of this sort may get short run votes, over the long term they might be hurtful of sound economic growth and performance."

Bloomberg News reports that hedge fund Bridgewater Associates has estimated that the total write-downs from the current credit crisis will total $1.6 trillion. With $400 billion in write-downs taken so far, this $1.6 trillion estimate would put us about a quarter of the way through the crisis. So far, banks have raised $321 billion in capital to buffer those write-downs.

And Teddy Forstmann, a private equity veteran, agrees with this assessment. In an interview from Saturday's Wall Street Journal, he said the current credit crisis is the worst he's seen. As he said, the problem started after 9/11 with the Fed giving away money at negative real interest rates. This created so much cash that banks could not find ways to lend it out where risk and reward were in balance.

So they created new ones which mis-priced risk. These include loan syndication -- in which banks originate loans and take a fee for selling them to someone else -- and securitization -- in which banks packages lots of loans as securities and sell those to hedge funds and other institutional investors. Unfortunately, these only work when the prices of the underlying assets are going up.

Hedge Fund guru George Soros warned over the weekend, in an interview with The Daily Telegraph, that " the crude oil market had been significantly affected by speculation." Because of all the speculators driving the price of crude higher and higher, Soros went on to say, "Speculation... is increasingly affecting the price, the price has this parabolic shape which is characteristic of bubbles."

While I tend to disagree with Soros when he predicts that we are headed for a very deep recession, I do think that there isn't much justification to $130+ per barrel of crude. After all, the continuing cry of increasing demand falls short, when the big consumers of oil, are experiencing slower economic growth. After the Olympics, I wouldn't be surprised to see Chinese growth take a sharp fall as well, as many of the public works projects come to an end.

I think that potentially, we will see crude oil fall back to the $50-60 per barrel level.

Aaron Katsman is Senior Portfolio Manager of the Israel Growth Portfolio, of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and Senior Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com. DISCLOSURE: Writer's fund has no position in any stock mentioned, as of 5/27/08

In an interview with CNBC's Maria Bartiromo, Presidential candidate Barack Obama started to spell out his economic plan. Obama said that he would raise capital gains taxes, "Well, you know, I haven't given a firm number. Here's my belief, that we can't go back to some of the, you know, confiscatory rates that existed in the past that distorted sound economics. And I certainly would not go above what existed under Bill Clinton, which was the 28 percent. I would--and my guess would be it would be significantly lower than that. I think that we can have a capital gains rate that is higher than 15 percent."

Just because the Senator got rich from his book doesn't mean that the rest of us should be punished for trying to grow our savings and our investments. Why should the middle-class have to pay higher capital gains tax so that Obama can bailout irresponsible home buyers?

Hasn't he learned economics? It's pretty clear that if you punish and make it harder for wealth creation and investment, that there won't be as much, and as a result the economy will get much worse.

With the pervasive use of computers in our lives, the line between what's mine and yours sometimes gets blurred. I read an interesting post on TechDirt today that describes a patent that Big Blue, International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) was awarded. The article, entitled "IBM Patents Real-Time Auto Insurance Surcharges," describes the patent as "Location-Based Vehicle Risk Assessment System, which describes how surcharges will be added to your auto insurance premium when a GPS device reports that you drove into an area in IBM's bad neighborhood database."

While this certainly sounds invasive, it's part of a larger trend in the insurance industry that actually benefits us consumers. In fact, I've written before about Pointer Telocation Limited (Nasdaq: PNTR), a small Israeli firm that markets technology similar to that of Lo-Jack's. In my interview with the Pointer Chairman, Yossi Ben Shalom told investors about a project underway in the U.S. called "Pay as You Go," in which insurance companies are testing programs with technology providers like Pointer that would revolutionize the auto insurance industry.

According to Ben Shalom, "Some people in the industry are talking about a discount or incentive program to build insurance policies on a multitude of parameters. Instead of just selling a policy based on the collective risk profile of the insured, "Pay as You Go" would calibrate premiums on a month-to-month basis based on specific data on how and who drove the car. Imagine a policy that didn't charge a family with a 16-year old driver when he didn't drive the car that month. Which roads the insured drove on, who drove the car, when the car was driven – all this data can be supplied via Pointer equipment to an insurance firm. There are some small pilot tests going on currently which we are involved in. Right now, we're talking about a very small percentage of the overall market but this could be a big driver for Pointer in the future because you need our technology for this."

Looks like IBM wants to get in on a project that could ultimately lower our auto insurance premiums. Clearly, no one wants their insurance company or anyone spying on them but with the right incentives and consumer protections, this new technology and new program could be great, no?

Zack Miller is the managing editor of IsraelNewsletter.com and a former equity analyst for a leading multinational hedge fund.

Four well known CEOs weighed in on CNBC's Squawk Box, giving their particular insight on economic conditions one day after the Federal Reserve made yet another basis rate cut. Each of the four Chief Executives acknowledged the tough going in the economy, yet each also sought to inject a thread of optimistic patience into their commentary.

Mike Jackson, CEO, Auto Nation Inc. (NYSE: AN), came to the defense of Reserve Board Chair Ben Bernanke. While admitting that the chairman may have crawled blindly into what is now mostly economic turmoil, Jackson stated: "...I think he absolutely has it right now. He's got to be on full flight recession mode, and we'll worry about the dollar, and commodities and inflation later." Personally, I think Benanke should be making moves to protect the consumers and their dollars first, and let inflation take care of itself until the consumer sector is back up to speed.

Wilbur Ross, CEO, W L Ross & Co. Played the most obtuse card stating: "My own opinion is that it's just more of the same volatility." More of the same volatility? Yeah the economy is volatile ... DUH!

Wireless companies like Sprint (NYSE: S) and Virgin Mobile (NYSE: VM) are ailing. Yet, at the same time, there are several new entrants into the space, such as Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG).

So, what's going on? Well, I had a chance to interview Frank Dickson, who is a wireless expert and the Chief Research Officer at MultiMedia Intelligence.

What's your take on Sprint? Is the industry undergoing some disruptive changes?

We are seeing some disruptive changes on a macro scale. They are not the cause of Sprint's problems though. The problem with Sprint is self-inflicted, much of which finds its roots in the Nextel merger.

What we have seen of late is a huge movement towards cellular operators becoming bandwidth providers. Voice is quickly becoming a commodity application running over their networks. All the major carriers have announced all the voice minutes that you can eat for $99. Sprint one upped with a super buffet of voice, data, and messaging for $99. The constituencies that most hate the term "dumb pipe" are ironically the entities that are driving the bandwidth provision competition as differentiation based on service offering gives way to price competition.

Equities are ailing. And yes, the IPO market is basically dead.

But there is a bright spot: Special Purpose Acquisition Corporations (known as SPACs). Essentially, this is a new-fangled public offering.

So, what's going on here?

Well, I had a chance to interview Andre Peschong, who is a veteran investment banker and has his own blog, Deal Flow Diaries.

What is a SPAC? The structure?

A SPAC is really an updated and cleaned up version of the old blind pool or blank check company. Basically, these SPACs are formed around qualified management teams that typically have a depth of knowledge in certain areas of business or industry. The SPAC structures are all fairly uniform but of late have been changing due to a number of items, such as market conditions, investor demands and SEC regulations.

The management team usually buys into the SPAC for some nominal amount -- relative to the total raise -- and receives for that a "promote," which is their equity benefit. That promote is not more than 20% and can actually be scaled back relative to getting a transaction closed.

MarketWatch was running a interview today with Will Nasgovitz, co-manager of the Heartland Select Value Fund (NASDAQ: HRSVX). The $332 billion fund has absolutely trounced the S&P 500 (AMEX: SPY) since 2000. Even with an extremely rocky 2007, the fund is up over 100% since 2000, where the S&P is actually (ugh) in the red for the same time period.

The secret sauce?

MarketWatch quotes manager Nasgovitz as saying that the team running Select Value has a background covering small- and micro-cap stocks, which don't get as much analyst research coverage, that they apply when delving into larger companies.

What's Nasgovitz buying of late?

News that Google (NSASDAQ: GOOG) has cut off Incredimail (NASDAQ: MAIL) from its AdSense program and that Adsense revenues "made a significant contribution to the company's results" caused a 37% drop in MAIL stock price. This is just the latest example of why you MUST learn to trust stock charts instead of corporate management. Remember this interview the CEO gave less than one month ago?

When I first saw how rosy a picture the CEO was painting as compared to Incredimail's incredibly downtrending stock chart, I was inspired to write this article. But with this latest news, I must disagree with my fellow BloggingStocks bloggers from IsraelNewsletter.com, specifically Aaron Katzman's latest post. Buying this stock here is just as risky as buying 50% off sushi; yes, it might be a bargain, but it could also be very dangerous to your investment health.

After all, there is a definitive reason for this plunge. When a company is dropped by Google, it's basically an indictment by the Supreme Court of the Internet. To make matters worse, remember that the CEO said, "We can find a way to promote suggested searches and ultimately, as our search traffic increases, negotiate a better deal with Google. We've just started optimizing our search revenues." Wow, now they are so totally busted! And thanks to the that now infamous interview we now know that advertising and search, "... accounts for almost 46% of our revenue," a figure noticeably absent from today's press release.

Ever see those smiley faces your friends and family may append to their email messages? Well, the leader in the space is a publicly-traded Israel firm named Incredimail (NASDAQ: MAIL). We, at Israel Opportunity Investor recently had a chance to sit with founder and CEO of Incredimail, Yaron Adler.

Tell us about your company.

Yaron Adler: Incredimail is an Israeli company, founded in late 1999. Incredimail is our flagship product for email. The product allows users to customize and personalize traditional email communication in a way that brings life and excitement to applications they regularly use. We enable you to send emails with 3D effects, funny animations, and customized backgrounds. We aren't re-inventing the wheel. We take existing applications, like email, and make them fun to use.

Do you have any other products?

YA: We are continuously looking for existing, successful consumer markets, and then we try to bring fun to these markets. Email, Magentic, (our desktop and screensaver application), our soon-to-launch messenger product and social network, we're launching Q1 2008, called Incrediworld. This product will not only be completely tailored for Incredimail users and products but also act as a fully-fledged social network.

Christopher Johns is certainly well-traveled. For more than a decade, he has started ventures in places like Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines.

His latest company is SupportSave, an outsourcing services provider for small and mid-sized customers.

I recently had a chance to interview him:

Some background on your company?

The company got its start in November 2004. Our founders strongly believed that the trend of outsourcing should not only benefit Fortune 1000 companies. So they set out to create a business model that makes outsourcing affordable to businesses of any size.

We thought the Philippines as the most suitable destination for our services because of the strong language skills, minimal accent and affinity towards American culture.

So it isn't every day that you get to ask an investment legend a question -- I would argue that Vanguard founder John Bogle has done more to help the small investor than everyone else in the history of the world combined times 10.

It really isn't even close. Index funds have enabled people saving for retirement to compound their money at a far, far better rate than they could before. Bogle's creation has allowed investors saving for retirement to let their money grow uninhibited, and cut off a stream of billions of dollars in undeserved management fees to poorly-performing mutual fund managers.

Tirade over. Fortune is giving readers an opportunity to submit a question to Mr. Bogle. A few hints: Don't ask him where the stock market is going. A cornerstone of his philosophy is his belief that it's nearly impossible to predict. Instead, ask him questions about public policy and corporate governance. Oh, and read his amazing and underrated book The Battle For the Soul of Capitalism.

I would ask him what he thinks about Social Security and whether it has a future in its current form. I would also want to know what he thinks about the huge improvements in corporate governance that have been achieved by activist hedge fund managers -- and whether enterprising investors might be able to find alpha by piggybacking off their picks.

There are literally hundreds of questions I could ask this legend -- I'm sure you have a few yourself.