This is rather strange. One would have expected things would look definitely more positive and people in a better mood on the very day of the inauguration of a new president of the US.
Sadly, that is not the exact scenario. The world stock markets dip into the negative territory, and unbelievably Dow falls more than 300 points (4%) to close below the 8k mark. This does not augur well for the global economy, reflecting badly on the dire state-of-affairs of the US economy in particular.
One explanation for the lackluster performance could be because consumers may not have that much confidence in the new administration team in bringing the bashed financial institutions back to normal that soon. If that is the case, there is no need to talk big about CHANGE and end up offering false promises.
In short, just quietly and diligently do the necessary work to bring about the correct result via right actions. Show the world Washington CAN and will.
(Tan Boon Tee, btt1943@yahoo.com)
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State Department | Manage the Building; Don't Let It Manage You
By James A. Baker III
In any cabinet role, but especially leading the State Department, a secretary's influence is only as strong as his or her relationship with the president. Everybody in Washington wants to get a piece of the foreign-policy turf, so it's imperative that there be an understanding between you and the president. In the current administration, there are four power centers on foreign policy: the State Department, the National Security Council, the Department of Defense and—uniquely to this administration—the vice president's office. But that all tends to promote gridlock and tension that might otherwise be avoided.
One of the things I did was go around and talk to every former secretary of state and every former president. Many of them gave me that very advice, that you need to be in control of your position and responsible for your department, because it's an institution in and of itself. You need to be the president's person at the State Department and not the State Department's person at the White House.But you'll also have to be a good manager. The department is a very large bureaucracy; most of the people below you are career public servants. The challenge will be to manage the building and not let the building manage you. Of course there will also be positions to appoint. Many people who come to Washington are afraid to surround themselves with extraordinarily competent individuals for fear they might take some of the luster away from the principal. But that's not how it works. You need to have extraordinarily talented people around you in order to succeed.In the building itself, you'll be up on the seventh floor. There's a formal office and an informal office. I didn't use the formal office much; it's mainly just to receive ambassadors. I sure had some fun up there. In those days, I was trying to quit smoking, so I would chew tobacco. I had a little sign that said I NOTICED THAT YOU SMOKE. I WANT TO TELL YOU THAT I CHEW, AND IF YOU DON'T BLOW YOUR SMOKE ON ME, I WON'T SPIT ON YOU. I put in on the mantle of the formal office. My wife had a heart attack. She said, "You've got to take that down." But you know, I never took it down. That's the kind of secretary I was.
— James Baker served as secretary of state under President George H.W. Bush
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