Under the helm of Lawrence Spivak and Tim Russert, NBC’s “Meet the Press” was the leader in Sunday morning political talk shows. So powerful, it oftentimes set the agenda on Capitol Hill. Its competitors are copy cats. With the untimely death of Russert at age 56, former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw stepped in and wishes not to continue. NBC may be passing the torch to up and coming reporter and fill-in “Today” show host David Gregory. Executives said it is not a done deal. Gregory...

Top executives of Detroit’s Big Three automakers got the memo when they delivered a lemon to Congress last month asking for $25 billion to keep their cars running. Ford Chief Executive Alan Mulally and Chrysler LLC CEO Robert Nardelli said they would work for $1 per year if Congress granted them the loans. General Motors Chief Rick Wagoner was expected to follow along. Nor will they arrive on three corporate jets to appear before Congress Thursday and Friday as they did in last month’s...

After reading Michael Lewis’s outstanding article on the greed, avarice, stupidity and cunning manipulation by Wall Street that dropped the U.S. economy to its knees, what a relief it is to learn of one business family who understands and appreciates how it achieved success. Its employees. While many executives compensate themselves with millions of dollars for running their corporations into the ground and ruining the credit and life savings of millions of Americans, the Spungen family of...

A security pack ratified by the Iraqi Parliament Thursday finally allows the United States to legally withdraw its troops in a responsible time frame. It won’t appease the liberal wing of the Democrat Party, whose support for Barack Obama opposing the Iraq war catapulted him to prominence in the early stages of the presidential primaries. But it does lend credence for Obama’s expected choice to keep Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who supported the compromise agreement, on board for a...

President-elect Barack Obama at his news conference Tuesday singled out farm subsidy abuses as one of many areas his budget advisers seek to eliminate. He cited reports of corporations receiving millions of dollars in subsidies far over the cap of $250,000. If true, he said, the oversight by the U.S. Department of Agriculture will be fixed. Lots of luck. The farm lobby and a harvest of congressmen and senators from the agricultural-driven states have been swilling at the taxpayers’ troughs...

While Wall Street and stock investors smile with relief, Main Street grimaces in pain. The government plowing $20 billion into Citigroup to forestall collapse is another example of throwing good money after bad. President Bush and his economic advisers said the company is too large to fail. “It would create chaos,” said Winson Fong, managing director at SG Asset Management in Hong Kong, which oversees about $3 billion in equities in Asia. “Simply put, you couldn’t borrow...

While President-elect Barack Obama apparently has named his top cabinet secretaries and White House team, only one has captured the fancy and imagination of the media. Hillary Clinton, of course. As Secretary of State. Big mistake, the attention she receives. Unless the U.S. is suddenly attacked between now and Jan. 20, the most critical cabinet appointment is Treasury Secretary, what with the economic crises our nation and those around the world are suffering. That would be Timothy F. Geithner,...

President-elect Barack Obama called for swift and bold action Saturday to deflect the falling economy. His weekly Democratic radio and video address signaled President Bush to fill the power vacuum in Washington. “If we don’t act swiftly and boldly, most experts now believe that we could lose millions of jobs next year,” Obama said. “We now risk falling into a deflationary spiral that could increase our massive debt even further.” Although he did not address Bush directly,...

The three major cable TV news channels are backed into a corner reaching for niche audiences which in the broadest terms can be described as preaching to the choir: Fox for conservatives; MSNBC for liberals and CNN for those disgusted with the biases of the former two. The election of Barack Obama and strong Democratic majorities in both Houses has forced role-reversals for Fox and MSNBC. Fox no longer voices the talking points of a Republican administration. The baton is handed to MSNBC. Not three...

President-elect Barack Obama drew the highest ratings in years on Sunday night’s telecast on CBS’s “60 Minutes.” He didn’t say much we already haven’t heard. The only real news between now and his inauguration Jan. 20 will be announcements of his cabinet. There isn’t much he could say although the show’s producers afforded him the entire broadcast. He’s sticking to his “one president at a time” mantra. But, hold on sports fans. He...