Obama Confident, but He'll Need Time

Confidence -- you either have it or you don't. It can't be bought, borrowed or faked. And President-elect Barack Obama certainly has given the country an economic team worthy of his own strong sense of confidence in the eventual recovery of the economy.

That was apparent as I sat at my first (pre)presidential press conference, where the top players flanked the president-to-be, nodding as he acknowledged that the country's economic problems will get worse before things get better. "We need confidence in the markets," he said, "and we need to restore the confidence of middle-class families who have been falling behind."

While refusing to give out specific details of his plan to create jobs or the amount of money that would be needed to undertake that task, the president-elect said he was counting on the wisdom and ingenuity of his economic team as well as the resilience and spirit of the nation to work its way through the current problems. And, he left no doubt that he would bring the necessary financial resources to bear.

Well, if all it takes is smart people, plenty of money and lots of self-confidence, this should be an easy task. Unfortunately, and in spite of all our best wishes and respect for this new team, it can't be that easy.

The economy is like a giant snowball, rolling downhill, picking up speed and size as it falls farther. And all the money being thrown at the problem to date seems to have had little impact. According to a tally by Bloomberg News, the sum of all the government's pledges to help (including the latest pledge to back $306 billion of Citigroup debt) now totals roughly $7.75 trillion.