Postcards

Power Point: Bring back the jobs

"Most of the money we're investing as part of this plan will get out the door immediately and go directly to job creation, generating or saving 3 to 4 million new jobs. And the vast majority of these jobs will be created in the private sector -- because, as these CEOs well know, business, not government, is the engine of growth in this country."

-- President Barack Obama to business leaders, MORE

Real-estate woes where the presidents go

By Jessica Shambora

As the Obamas moved into the White House, the Bushes headed to Texas. Yesterday's shift at the top of the government should give at least a little kick to the dismal U.S. housing market.

In the Obamas' former home, Chicago, prices are down 14% over the past year. And home prices in the Washington, D.C. area? Down 14.3%, according to Move Inc., which runs Realtor.com, the official site of MORE

Power Point: The price and promise of citizenship

"What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility--a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world; duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task. This is the MORE

Power Point: Make government work for the people

"Two years from now, I want the American people to be able to say, 'Government's not perfect; there are some things Obama does that get on my nerves. But you know what? I feel like the government's working for me...I feel that this is a President and an Administration that admits when it makes mistakes and adapts itself to new information, that believes in making decisions based on facts and MORE

Power Point: It takes more than regulation

"Regulation cannot produce integrity."

-- Tim Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, in a speech at the Economic Club of New York in June. Barack Obama's choice of Geithner as U.S. Treasury Secretary sent the Dow up 397 points today. Geithner has called for regulatory reform and systematic overhaul, but in his new role, he'll apparently seek an economic culture change too. In this June speech, he MORE

Power Point: Make good decisions quickly

"If we do not correctly diagnose the causes, and instead act in haste to implement more rather than better regulations, we can do long-term harm."

-- U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson in a speech in Simi Valley, California today. The question of how to make the best decisions is weighing on everyone these days - particularly on Paulson and Barack Obama. Is it better to act with a sense of urgency MORE

The Palin Effect: Here to stay

Sarah Palin changed the game for women and power, and it'll never be the same again. So say a few well-known women -- Arianna Huffington, former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, White House Project president Marie Wilson, and More magazine editor in chief Lesley Jane Seymour -- who met in New York this morning for "The Spin Room: Gender, Politics and Media in the 2008 Election." The lively panel was MORE

Summers a controversial choice for Treasury

Barack Obama has been close to naming Larry Summers as the next Secretary of the Treasury, but the appointment is being held up by opposition to the brilliant but controversial economist. Fortune managing editor Andy Serwer said in his column Thursday that Summers, who headed Treasury under President Bill Clinton, is the lead candidate for the post in the new administration. Treasury officials have been led to believe that Summers MORE

Power Point: Do the tough stuff first

"You better damn well do the tough stuff up front, because if you think you can delay the tough decisions and tiptoe past the graveyard, you're in for a lot of trouble. Make the decisions that involve pain and sacrifice up front."

--Leon E. Panetta, the former White House chief of staff who has been advising Barack Obama's transition team, in The New York Times today. The Times piece opens by MORE

Obama: New-style communicator

Barack Obama won the most resounding popular vote of any Democratic Presidential candidate since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. But you'd never know it by the tone of his victory speech. Did you notice? After loping on stage -- appearing more subdued than any President-elect in recent history, as ABC News' George Stephanopolous noted -- Obama spoke in a style that seems to me to parallel that of an ever-growing crop MORE