“We
have been asleep at the switch -- not just some regulatory agencies but
some of the congressional committees,” Obama said at a press conference
in Chicago, blaming “a White House that started with the premise that
deregulation was always good.”

Obama
promised to release a detailed regulatory plan as “one of my earliest
initiatives,” and said it will force the kind of “adult supervision” of
markets Americans are yearning for now, in the wake of Bernard L.
Madoff’s 50 billion dollars Wall Street financial fraud. But he said
new rules aren’t enough.

“Everybody
from CEOs to shareholders to investors are going to have to be asking
themselves, Not only is this profitable, not only whether this will
boost my bonus, but is it right? Does it conform to some higher
standards in terms of how we operate?” Obama said.

Rounding
out his economic team, Obama has decided to nominate former Dallas
Mayor Ron Kirk to be US trade representative, and Rep. Hilda L. Solis
to be Labor Secretary, a senior Democratic official confirmed, The
Washington Times reported.

They
will join the new financial regulatory regime Obama announced on
Thursday: Mary Schapiro to be the next chairwoman of the Securities and
Exchange Commission, Gary Gensler to be chairman of the Commodities
Futures Trading Commission and Dan Tarullo as a new member of the
Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors.

Obama has also chosen retired Navy Adm. Dennis Blair to be director of national intelligence.

He said on Thursday that the deficit could top 1 trillion dollars, or more than double fiscal year 2008’s record figure.

And he asked voters to be patient with him, saying he will make mistakes, but plans to be up-front about it. (ANI)