Certainly, President-elect Obama has a number of highly-qualified executives who could fill the role of Secretary of the Treasury. However, in the interest of thinking 'outside the box' (that phrase always makes me think of cat-litter boxes, not wholly irrelevant), and reaching beyond the D.C. and Wall Street establishment, I thought I'd present a few candidates of my own.

1. Ed McMahon. Poor Ed really needs the work, according to Hollywood gossip. He has a great deal of experience in giving away huge sums of money thanks to his Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes gig. Can you imagine the glee on the faces of AIG executives when Ed shows up at their door with a presentation-sized check for $122 billion?

2. Willie Nelson. The country and western singer is already a large investor in the country's tax system, and probably knows more IRS personnel than Paul Volcker. And if the market keeps tanking, you can count on Willie to provide some help mellowing out nervous investors.

3. Bob Barker. Bob's out of work now, having turned over the reins of The Price is Right after 100 years. His expertise, obviously, would be in determining target prices for the market. If we reach the point that we have to choose which banks to bail out and which to allow to close, Bob (and Vanna, of course) could make the selection process much more enjoyable. "Citigroup- come on down!"

My advice? Choose what's behind curtain #1.

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.

The market was looking like it would open up this morning. That is, until 8:30 a.m. when the wholesale inflation report came in at more than twice the rate economists had expected. Now the market is expected to drop. Will the Plunge Protection Team (PPT) step in as it may have done yesterday?

The reason the market reversed is that with higher than expected inflation, the Fed is less likely to cut interest rates. The Fed wants to keep core inflation between 1% and 2%, but when the PPI rises 1.3% in a month -- instead of the expected 0.6% -- investors fear that the Fed will need to raise rates to keep inflation within its target range. Is the Fed serious though? Last week, a productivity report noted that unit labor costs rose 6.6% in the last quarter of 2006. Although bonuses figured into the statistic, the slower growth in productivity suggests that wage inflation could be a future concern.

My guess is, though, that the Fed has a more complex goal -- it's torn between the desire to control inflation and the need to avoid sinking the economy too much. As this report from Fortune suggests, people with adjustable rate mortgages can get into trouble quickly when those rates rise. With two-thirds of economic growth coming from consumer spending, a rise in interest rates could then reduce the heavily leveraged consumer's ability to keep spending.