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.

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.

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.

At a speech in Manhattan yesterday, Senator Barack Obama blamed lax oversight and deregulation for the housing sector's woes, saying that "Under Republican and Democratic administrations, we failed to guard against practices that all too often rewarded financial manipulation instead of productivity and sound business practices. The result has been a distorted market that creates bubbles instead of steady sustainable growth, a market that favors Wall Street over Main Street but ends up hurting both."

He's right about that -- but his solution is to pump $30 billion into the system, in part to help bailout homeowners who were the beneficiary of overly aggressive mortgage lending.

His position makes no sense: If people were able to buy homes because of a distorted market caused by lax oversight, doesn't pumping in money to help them keep "their" homes just prolong the problem?

There's an old adage that you've got to give sometimes in order to receive. Nowhere is that more true than in modern-day politics where the level of candidate scrutinization had reached epic heights. While no politico myself, I do recognize a savvy move when I see one, and I think I just spotted one.

Obama just released his 2000-2006 tax returns into the public domain and is now urging Hillary Clinton to do the same. Why subject your filings to the public sphere? This armchair pundit believes that Obama knows something about the Clinton filings and is upping the ante to push them to the same level of disclosure.

But once we've got the filings, what do they tell us about Obama? Well, Bloomberg is taking the Obamas to task for not quite giving as charitably as they could. In an article out today, Bloomberg writes that the Obamas gave less than 1% of their 2000-2004 income to charity.

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.

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.)

Maybe it took the prospect of going down to an inglorious defeat to a relative political novice to get Hillary Clinton to loosen up.

In the last 72 hours, the New York senator has appeared on both "Saturday Night Live" and "The Daily Show." On both appearances, she was calm, relaxed and natural, qualities that have been decidedly lacking in her campaign. The question heading into today's important Texas and Ohio primaries is whether this new -- or is it new, new? -- Hillary will resonate with voters.

The latest Zogby polls shows that Clinton is leading challenger Barack Obama 47% to 44% in Texas. Both candidates are deadlocked in Ohio at 44%. "The latest polling numbers are promising for Clinton, but with 8% of likely Democratic voters undecided in Ohio and 7% undecided in Texas both candidates have work to do today," writes Jessica Fargen of the Boston Herald. "Texas offers 228 delegates, Ohio 164."

Obama's honeymoon with the media -- which lasted an unusually long time -- also is coming to an end. The Illinois senator's campaign has stumbled somewhat in how it responded to criticisms that its opposition to NAFTA -- a critical issue in Ohio -- was less than genuine. Moreover, his one-time political benefactor Antonin Rezko is on trial for political corruption in Chicago.

But this rebound from Clinton may be too little too late. Unless she stuns political pundits and wins huge, pressure will mount on her to quit the race.

Hillary Clinton must win by gargantuan margins in next week's primaries in Ohio and Texas or else her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination will be over, according to her husband former President Bill Clinton and other political pundits. The odds of that happening are daunting.

Polls show that Clinton, who has lost ten straight contests to Obama, is losing ground to the Illinois senator in Ohio and that she is virtually tied in Texas. Over the past few months, Clinton's support has eroded among almost every demographic group and there is no sign that is going to change.

These days, Clinton exudes all of the charm of a middle school disciplinarian. Her recent outburst that Obama should be "ashamed" of himself for sending out misleading advertising mailers is a case in point. Factcheck.org, which argued that she has some valid points, argued that Clinton is no slouch in stretching the truth in her advertisements either:

What's the new president - - Republican or Democrat -- likely to face after taking the oath of office in 2009?

Daunting fiscal problems -- and right at a time when Congress may have to consider more fiscal stimulus to jump-start the U.S. economy, one economist observed.

The biggest problem, economist Glen Langan said, will be the federal government's budget deficit. The United States is on-track to record a $200 billion deficit in Fiscal 2009 and a $241 billion in Fiscal 2010 -- and that's if the U.S. economy doesn't fall into a recession, Langan said, citing Congressional Budget Office data.

"The baseline CBO projections present a large budgetary task for the new president, but by itself it's not an impossible one, absent a major recession. The problem is there's no money available to tackle any other problems, including ones a Democratic president would address -- health care, energy policy, education and infrastructure. And don't forget the Iraq War, anti-terrorism efforts, and potential mortgage assistance programs," Langan said. "If there aren't changes to the tax code, given the current revenue structure and tax rates,to say the next president's hands are tied regarding new programs, would be an understatement."

In this midst of a tirade about Michelle Obama's comments that "for the first time in my adult lifetime I am really proud of my country," the ever-so-enlightened Bill O'Reilly had this to say:

"I don't want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there's evidence, hard facts, that say this is how the woman really feels. If that's how she really feels -- that America is a bad country or a flawed nation, whatever -- then that's legit. We'll track it down."

I've pretty much given up on being shocked by anything O'Reilly says anymore, but I am shocked that he hasn't been fired -- or at least suspended -- over this blatantly offensive and inexcusable remark.

Don Imus was fired for something that was, in my opinion, far less offensive -- and he's an early morning radio shock jock!

It's interesting that News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) Fox News apparently has lower standards for its anchors than talk radio.

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.

Senator Clinton has touted herself as someone who excels at the "prose" of governing -- not the "poetry" of campaigning. So as someone who voted for Barack Obama in the Massachusetts primary, I was interested in the New York Times reports that her use of campaign funds indicate a pattern of poor resource allocation. This evidence undercuts her claims of management competence.

Here are some notable examples of mismanagement of the $106 million Clinton has raised so far:

• $100,000 went for party platters and groceries before the Iowa caucuses which Obama won;
• $275,000 to Sunrise Communications, a South Carolina firm that was supposed to turn out black voters for her and collected nearly $800,000 in total. Obama won South Carolina;
• $25,000 spent at the Bellagio luxury hotel in Las Vegas and another $5,000 the Four Seasons there -- She won the vote there but received fewer delegates than Obama; and
• $5 million spent on top consultants in January, a month of crucial expenses and tough fund-raising.

I love ice cream as much as the next guy. OK, way more than the next guy. I've eaten far more than my fair share of Haagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry's lux frozen treats. But though I've watched with fascination as Ben & Jerry's exalted hippie icons and the odd politician with its flavors, I've never thought of an ice cream as an icon of political opinion.

No more will I hold such a narrow world view! This weekend, Haagen-Dazs announced a new flavor, Vanilla Honey Bee. The flavor isn't meant for its delicious honey taste, as it is to bring more visibility to the plight of the honey bees (overworked, it seems, from too much travel and forced labor in the almond groves, though cell phone towers have also been suspected). Haagen-Dazs is donating $250,000 to two universities to study Colony Collapse Disorder, and a spokesperson says that 40% of the company's flavors depend (in one way or another) on bees: "We use 100% all natural ingredients like strawberries, raspberries and almonds which we get from California. The bee problem could badly hurt supply from the Pacific Northwest."

On the other side of the ice cream aisle, Ben (Cohen) and Jerry (Greenfield), founders and corporate namesakes of Ben & Jerry's, have gone public with their endorsement of Barack Obama for president. They will tour Vermont in Obamamobiles, giving away scoops of "Cherries for Change" ice cream. While fans on Obama's web site seem excited, there's no news as to what sort of flavor "Cherries for Change" is (or is it just Cherry Garcia with a new label?), whether "Baracky Road" or "Yes we Pecan" will follow, or if corporate overlord Unilever (NYSE: UL) is distributing the flavor to grocery store freezer sections near you.

Democrat presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, today unveiled a new $210 billion federal spending plan that he says would create jobs in construction and environmental services.

The Obama proposal would invest money over 10 years in two programs, the largest of which would be a $150 billion effort to create 5 million "green collar" jobs to develop more-environmentally friendly energy sources.

The remaining $60 billion would fund a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank to rebuild the nation's highways, bridges, airports and other public facilities. Obama said the construction fund would create nearly 2 million jobs, many of them in construction directly - - a sector hard-hit by the housing sector's correction - - the nation's most severe housing slump in more than 20 years.

Rival Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-New York, called Obama's effort unoriginal. Neera Tanden, Clinton's policy director, said Obama was offering ideas Clinton proposed months ago. "Voters may ask themselves that if Senator Obama cannot produce his own ideas on the campaign trail, how will he solve new problems as president?" Tanden said in a memo e-mailed to reporters, The Associated Press reported.

Furthermore, the Republican National Committee, which seeks to portray Obama as a tax-and-spend liberal, included Obama's plan on its 'Obama Spend-O-Meter.' The Republicans assert that Obama's announced programs would add $850 billion in federal spending over four years, including health care, education, national service and foreign aid programs, among others. The RNC's web site did not break down the asserted total by year, but economist Steve Affinito told BloggingStocks Wednesday, assuming equal, annual appropriations of $212.5 billion, the total would not be an unreasonable nor an unwarranted outlay, from an economic standpoint, in his interpretation.

"I don't know where the RNC obtained its $850 billion total, but for the sake of argument, even it was $220 billion per year, that's fairly modest, given the services it includes, including universal health insurance," Affinito said. "Also, given the current state of the economy we may find we may need another $150-$200 billion economic stimulus this year, just to keep the economy growing. So in that regard, Sen. Obama's proposal is insinc with the times and a net positive for the U.S. economy."