A front page story on Edwards backing Obama in today's Financial Times had an interesting unattributed comment near the end. In it, a source suggested that a deal could be in the works to make Hillary Clinton give up her quest for the Holy Grail -- err Democratic nomination.

The final paragraph in the print edition (this paragraph actually didn't make it into the online edition of the story) quotes one of senator Clinton's Wall Street backers as saying that the "'ultimate peace pact' with Obama could involve some sort of support from him to pay off her debts, which are estimated at $20m or more."

I am not sure how Obama would help Clinton pay off her campaign debts. Would he divert money he's raised from his supporters to Clinton? I don't think Obama supporters would be too happy about that. Or would he start a new round of fund raising with the explicit understanding that the money would go to Clinton? It's no surprise really that someone from Wall Street would be suggesting such a deal. I don't know whether this kind of thing has been done before but my hunch is that it has.

The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) that Senator Barack Obama's bid for the presidency will be endorsed by three former Securities and Exchange Commission chairmen: George W. Bush appointee William Donaldson, Clinton appointee Arthur Levitt, and Reagan appointee David Ruder.

First of all: how many of you plan to factor in the endorsement of former heads of the SEC into your pick for president? That's what I thought.

But it's still interesting. Reality aside, Levitt and Donaldson are generally viewed as having been strong pro-investor advocates, mainly because they were good at pretending to take strong action against Wall Street malfeasance. Of course Enron's accounting was approved under Levitt's tenure but hey, nobody's perfect, right?

I'm not even sure why Levitt, Ruder, and Donaldson feel like they should endorse presidential candidates. Nobody cares! Barbra Streisand endorsed Hillary Clinton, and that's what really matters.

Anyone looking for insights into Barack Obama's economic policy might want to take a look at how he has handled his personal finances. According to Slate.com, the Illinois senator and Democratic front-runner invests his money as if he were in his 60s instead of his 40s.

Thanks to the success of his two books "Dreams of My Father" and "The Audacity of Hope," the Obama family is wealthier than most. In 2007, the Obamas earned $4.1 million, thanks to the books that have sold more than 2.25 million copies, according to Bookscan data cited by Slate. Both John McCain and Hillary Clinton, however, are much wealthier. None are waiting with anticipation for their fiscal stimulus checks to arrive.

"Obama has not donated the proceeds from his books to charity, as John McCain has, but then Obama did not marry an heiress with $40 million in assets," Slate noted. Good point. In addition, McCain's wife Cyndi has refused to disclose her tax returns, which she files separately from her husband. That will be an issue during the general election. Bill Clinton's lucrative speech-making business has already caused problems for his wife's campaign.

Voters worried that Obama is a tax-and-spend liberal should take some comfort from the conservative -- Slate says too conservative -- approach in his portfolio that it is too weighted toward bonds and not enough toward stocks. Unlike former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Obama has no hedge fund investments or much of anything else exciting. Most of his money is in mutual funds.

"Unlike the average American, however, Sen. Obama had the wherewithal to save the maximum allowable amount ($45,000) in his retirement plan last year," Slate says.

While at a credit card conference recently, I met up with a data analytics expert. He talked about how companies like Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) have dominated their sectors because of their mastery of creative algorithms (for example, somehow Amazon seems to know the books I like).

Well, he also talked up myBarackObama.com. He thought this was the future of marketing; that is, using social networking to supercharge monetization.

He has a point. In fact, a recent piece in Bloomberg.com has some good thoughts on this.

Keep in mind that myBarackObama.com has extensive profiles on about 800,000 people. What's more, as members continue to interact with the site -- in terms of comments and so on -- the database gets stronger and stronger.

In other words, myBarackObama.com is a high value asset that could be instrumental for the Democrats in future elections.

OK, so what might myBarackObama.com be worth? If you look at the valuations of social networks like Facebook, the figure is likely to be substantial (by the way, Obama's Facebook page has 790,000 friends). And according to the Bloomberg piece, the estimate is that the market value is about $200 million or so.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates MergerBook.com.

Whatever your political ideology happens to be, I think we can all agree on one thing: Given the complex economic issues currently facing our country -- many of which will continue to be important for the foreseeable future -- our next president must be someone who understand economics.

To that end, the latest issue of Barron's looks at the backgrounds of each candidate (subscription required), showing something troubling: McCain's financial expertise is pretty much limited to having married a rich woman. That's a good strategy to be sure, but not necessarily the best background for someone charged with dealing with the current mess. Advising struggling homeowners to scan the obituaries in search of newly widowed socialites might not go over well.

Then there's Barack Obama whose experience in the market is, according to Barron's, pretty much limited to having once lost $13 thousand on stocks acquired through a blind trust. Barron's writes that "Small wonder he's giddy to raise taxes on interest and dividends. Obama has little skin in the game ... He's as insulated from his own dividend and capital gains proposals as a penguin is from the cold."

Hillary Clinton's net worth is very high, but she owns little stock. Her experience on the board of directors at Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) is intriguing but, looking at the available information, one thing is clear: None of these candidates can be considered an economics expert, something that we badly need, although George W. Bush's MBA from Harvard did little to avert the current mess.

Perhaps we'll get our economics expert from the other half of the presidential ticket. Private equity titan Mitt Romney is rumored to be a possible pick for John McCain, and there is some speculation that Barack Obama could pair up with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

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.

While he should be commended for opening up his tax records, Democratic Presidential front-runner Barack Obama and wife Michelle should be embarrassed at the negligible amount of money donated to charity. According to a report in Bloomberg.com, " Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and his wife Michelle gave $10,772 of the $1.2 million they earned from 2000 through 2004 to charities, or less than 1 percent, according to tax returns for those years released today by his campaign."

To be fair to them they did up their giving a bit in '05-'06 after they cashed in on his book. Interesting to note that in that 2-year span they brought in $2.6 million. $2.6 million later and Michelle is still not proud to be an American. Humm???

For someone who believes that we need to change society and make things better, he sure sets a lousy example. After all, I thought he is all about giving back to the community. Well the community can't do very much with a couple of bucks.

Once again we find the hypocrisy of politicians. They know best how to make society better, and they have no problem taxing us to pay for it. But when it comes time for the politician to open up his own wallet, suddenly some excuse arises and they are unable to do so. Isn't that called a double standard?

Aaron Katsman is the lead Portfolio Manager and Managing Director 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 3/25/08.

Seeking to change the subject from her foreign policy exaggerations, Sen. Hillary Clinton turned her attention to domestic matters, proposing a $30 billion plan to help state and local governments reduce the number of foreclosures.

Moreover, she proposed creating a "high-level emergency working group" comprised of former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan "father of the mortgage crisis" Greenspan, former Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin and reported Barack Obama supporter/ former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker. The New York senator thinks the world needs another government study whose recommendations will be ignored.

"As much as she focused on ways to ease the mortgage crisis, Senator Clinton also dwelled on what she called 'a crisis of confidence in our country,' and portrayed herself as the candidate best able to address the economic problems of middle-income and economically struggling families," according to The New York Times.

Voters, though, are showing a lack of confidence in her. Odds of her winning are slim and none, according to Politico and other political media. That being said, the housing crisis and high oil prices will be the top issues in the campaign. Expect a billion or so commercials on the topics between now and November.

Freelance writer Jonathan Berr edits the blog Ketchup and Eggs.

While kudos should be given to the Fed for trying to do whatever it takes to shore up the banking system, what is a bit more worrisome is how both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton approach the problem. Obviously they started out by blaming President Bush for these problems.

According to an AP report:

"Now we are in the soup and we better get ourselves out of it before the consequences get drastic," Democratic presidential contender Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters. Barack Obama said: "History will not judge President Bush kindly for his failure to act in a way that could've prevented or alleviated this economic crisis."

Does Obama think that the President could have prevented the entire economic crisis, had he acted differently? In fact I postulate that one of the major reasons that Wall Street is in the current situation is because of a precedent taken 10 years ago by then Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. He bailed out his Wall Street buddies after they were set to lose billions in bad investments in Asia, among other places. Go figure that after they get saved once, they go ahead a decade later and continue to make investments without taking into account risk. They knew that they could get away with it because they would get bailed out. And guess what? They are going to get bailed out.

The fact is that the Fed, by injecting liquidity, is doing exactly what it should be doing to try and get the banking system back on track. Many economists believe that had the same strategy been implemented in 1929, there never would have been a Great Depression. Back then they took money out of the system and companies went bankrupt. The Fed is making no such mistake this time.

Aaron Katsman is the lead Portfolio Manager and Managing Director 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 3/17/08.

Over the past ten years, eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY)'s CEO, Meg Whitman, has had a love / hate relationship with eBay users. No matter what your personal thoughts are regarding Whitman, you have to give it to her; she did take eBay to levels no one would have dreamed possible just ten years ago.

Well, her tenure at eBay is coming to an end, and her next move is into politics, working high up in Senator John McCain's Presidential campaign.

Back in January, Whitman announced that she would be stepping down from eBay to pursue philanthropy and politics, and her first big step is going to be serving as co-chair of Senator McCain's national presidential campaign.

While we still have not reached the point of McCain being announced the official Republican candidate for the upcoming election, it is all but a forgone conclusion that McCain is going to be the Republican's choice for November's pivotal election in America. After a rocky eight years with George Bush running the show, the Republicans are definitely going to have their hands full with this year's election, and Whitman is coming on board to have a leading role in the campaign's financing and policy development.

Tuesday's primary victories in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island gave Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-New York, about all her campaign could hope for: solid performances and a chance to close the delegate gap in the next primary, in Pennsylvania on April 22.

Still, the delegate math remains rough for the candidate seeking to become the first woman nominated for president by a major U.S. political party. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, leads in delegates, 1477-1391, including pledged superdelegates, according to a Washington Post tally, and the Clinton campaign's strategy will now be to try to close the delegate gap to 60 or so with a win in Pennsylvania. Two caucuses, Wyoming and Mississippi, occur before the Pennsylvania primary, and Sen. Obama is expected to win each and increase his delegate lead heading into Pennsylvania.

In 187-delegate Pennsylvania, the demographics favor Sen. Clinton -- she's leading in statewide polls there - - and the Clinton campaign likes its chances. Pennsylvania has a large working class -- which, along with women voters and Latin-Americans, forms the bulk of Clinton's base. If Sen. Clinton registers a solid win in Pennsylvania, she can make the case that although Sen. Obama has the delegate lead, she has won in the major states of New York, California, Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and probably would have won in Florida, had the delegate count been included in the Democratic Party's nominating process. That big-state coalition, and the fact that she's the candidate of the working class, would be two strong philosophical points as the campaign attempts to secure pledges from the to-date 353 un-pledged superdelegates. (Note: The number of un-pledged delegates is likely to decline by the end of the primary season on June 3.)

In an attempt to explain his position regarding trade, Democratic presidential front-runner Barack Obama said that he did not oppose free trade, despite making increasingly critical comments about multilateral deals such as NAFTA.

Asked how other countries should interpret his position, Obama responded that he supported free trade but wanted it to be fair.

"What the world should interpret is my consistent position, which is I believe in trade," he said after meeting with workers at a manufacturing plant in Ohio.

"I just want to make sure that the rules of the road apply to everybody and they are fair and that they reflect the interests of workers and not just corporate profits."

Well why, Senator Obama, do companies want to engage in trade? The answer is because both sides feel that they can gain from the deal. Corporations engage in trade to profit. Period. Entrepreneurs start companies because they think they can make a buck. On the other side, poorer countries want to trade to help create wealth.

The New York Times reports that Hillary Clinton is giving off signals that her campaign for President could be nearing an end. It's hard to know if this veil of tears is just Hillary using the crying gambit -- as she did in New Hampshire -- in the pages of her hometown newspaper. But as she acknowledges in the article, running for President is a marathon from which the fittest political athlete emerges victorious.

The Times article helps highlight a critical difference between Clinton and Obama which may explain why Obama is proving himself to be the fitter of the two Democratic candidates. With Clinton, it appears that the voter's job is to help her to realize her ambitions by giving her money or votes. By contrast, Obama presents himself as the vessel for achieving voter's hopes. In short, with Hillary it's about what voters can do for her. And for Obama, it's about what he can do for voters.

The effect of these different approaches is that Clinton appears tired as she struggles to break an 11 state losing streak in the upcoming March 4th primaries. It's as though she needs the voters to give her the strength to keep going and that evidence of insufficient support saps her strength. By contrast, Obama looks like he hasn't really broken a sweat as he goes from victory to victory.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who proved that presidential politics is a lousy investment, is poised to endorse Republican front-runner and his one-time rival John McCain, according to the New York Times.

This is hardly a shock.

Republicans, with the exception of Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul, are rallying around the Arizona senator who is their party's best hope of keeping the White House. The GOP has a lousy history, though, with Arizona senators running for president. Barry Goldwater was trounced by Lyndon Johnson in 1964 and odds are growing that McCain will get a whooping equal too or potentially worse at the hands of Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.

As a registered independent who voted for Obama on Super Tuesday, I was interested in reading BusinessWeek's take on Obama's likely impact on the U.S. economy. Its conclusion is that Obama is thoughtful and refreshing and is willing to work with business leaders, many of whom may reject him because he does not hew to the Republican line on taxes.

Last Friday, while Guest Hosting CNBC's Squawk Box, I spoke with Obama's economic advisor, University of Chicago professor Austan Goolsbee. He made two points that I found interesting. First, he said that Obama is very enthusiastic about the prospects for the U.S. economy and the stock market. Second, he suggested that Obama was months ahead of Hillary Clinton in proposing an economic stimulus package.

I asked Goolsbee what he thought was the cause of the economic slowdown. He thought the problem was the cash-strapped consumer and that tax rebates were the solution. I argued that the problem is that banks lack sufficient capital to offset the write-downs they're taking in the wake of the evaporation of demand for the Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) they hold. Goolsbee thought this was a secondary problem and did not embrace my proposal to recapitalize the banks.