The proposal for a new global reserve currency - or Special Drawing Rights - is a good idea for many reasons. Yes, for the Chinese it would cushion any fall in the value of the dollar per se because it would only be part of a basket of other currencies, including the yen and the euro.

The powershift began already several years ago, under the Bush administration, when the dollar became very volatile and started declining. That is when China shifted from having almost 100 percent of its reserves in dollars to 75 percent. Some countries went completely out of the dollar. The dollar, for all intents and purposes, lost its special reserve status and people starting talking about a portfolio, or basket, approach as a store of wealth instead of the dollar.

I understand why political leaders in the beginning want to be cheerleaders to generate optimism. But to admit that they didn't understand the depths of the problem afterwards, I found a little bit surprising.

There is a growing consensus that the European systems have worked better than the American: They have been able to deliver better health care to more people at lower cost.

Health care is very different from other sectors of the economy in several respects, one of which is the fact that the risk can be very high beyond people's ability. That leads to insurance.

The country has large unfunded liabilities - social security, health care, and there will have to be some adjustments to these problems. What is scary though is how much worse things have gotten in the last eight years, and the Iraq war is one of the main factors.

If you destroy a firm, you can't pull it out of bankruptcy overnight.