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."

News that the European Commission is planning to adopt proposals next week that will ask sovereign wealth funds to accept a code of conduct to govern their investment activities, raises the question if the U.S. government should take a look at the impact these funds may have on U.S. security.

Peter Mandelson, the European trade commissioner, said the code will outline standards of governance and transparency for such funds.

"The emphasis in their investments should be on commercial motivations, not national or strategic considerations. I think such a code is possible to draw up and would get acceptance from the wealth funds," the report quoted Mandelson as saying.

German companies, for example, are worried that China will steal their intellectual property or that Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to use such investments "as a political instrument," according to European Member of Parliament Wolf Klinz.

Today's news that Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was killed in a terrorist attack has reminded everybody, including the Democratic Party, just how dangerous a world we live in. We are once again reminded that there is a very large movement of individuals bent on the destruction of the West, along with the democratic ideals that the West represents. For those who feel that it's President Bush's fault we are not well-liked, today's incident shows that the deep-rooted hatred has nothing to do with the current U.S. president, but everything to do with the ideals on which the U.S. was founded. It is these ideals that are not well-liked by these extremist elements.

With this grim reminder of the dangers still common in the world, I think this means a renewed focus on security stocks. When speaking about security, no conversation is complete without looking at the Israeli market. The undisputed leader in security technology, Israel's security establishment gained fame because of the reign of terror that the country has faced for decades. Nice Systems (NASDAQ: NICE) is one such company. The stock is bucking today's downward market pressure and is gaining more than 1.5%.

Nice is a security company specializing in two markets: Security and Call Centers. Its security solution empowers security personnel to detect, prevent and respond to threats in real-time. The system also helps in investigating and reconstructing criminal and security cases using video surveillance and control services, incident monitoring and reconstruction solutions. NICE is the market leader in providing fast and efficient solutions for the capture, storage, retrieval and analysis of customer interactions for contact centers and the enterprise. Nice will be playing an active role in the upcoming summer Olympics in Beijing.

As long as there are bad guys out there, there will be a need for a company like Nice.

Aaron Katsman is the lead Portfolio Manager and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and Senior Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com. DISCLOSURE: Writer has a position in NICE and is long the stock. Writer has no position in any other stock mentioned as of 12/27/07.

Our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan risk their lives everyday for the United States. The least the Department of Defense can give them is access to News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) MySpace and Google Inc.'s (NASDAQ: GOOG) YouTube and similar Web sites.

According to a Department memo obtained by the Associated Press, the military argued:"This recreational traffic impacts our official DoD network and bandwidth ability, while posing a significant operational security challenge."

The ban, which takes effect Monday, applies to all troops serving overseas.

It's ridiculous.

First of all, the military networks are gigantic enough to be able to handle the bandwidth being used by members of the Armed forces chatting with their friends on MySpace or watching YouTube video clips. I bet that a team of smart people could figure out a way to prevent classified information from showing up on these sites.

Maybe people in the War Zone could give out their screen names to their commanding officers. If the Pentagon can figure out how to shoot down incoming nuclear missiles, it certainly can figure out how to solve this problem.

Moreover, denying soldiers a cheap, easy and fairly safe form of entertainment seems petty. Then again, the men and women serving overseas put up with quite a bit.

Many probably are too busy to spend much time surfing the Internet.