US:BARACK OBAMA called a summit of his senior economic advisers to help craft his response to the Wall Street financial crisis yesterday as sparring intensified over which presidential candidate was best qualified to handle the turmoil.
Mr Obama has assembled a stellar team of economists and financial leaders to advise him on the crisis, including Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor; Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, and a bipartisan trio of former treasury secretaries.
Several of them met Mr Obama for talks in Florida yesterday, with others joining by telephone as the Illinois senator sought to convince voters of his readiness to lead the US through economic uncertainty.
Mr Obama voiced support for efforts by the US administration and Congress to shore up the financial markets, saying "bold and decisive action" was needed to avoid a deepening crisis that could "jeopardise the life savings and wellbeing of millions of Americans".
He vowed to delay announcing his plans for dealing with the turmoil to avoid interfering with the government response, and urged Democrats and Republicans to allow the Treasury department and Federal Reserve to act "unimpeded by partisan wrangling".
Republican candidate John McCain urged creation of a new government agency to help distressed financial institutions, and voiced caution about more interventions by the Federal Reserve.
Mr McCain said his proposed Mortgage and Financial Institutions Trust would work with the private sector and regulators to find vulnerable institutions and fix them before they needed bailouts. He said such an agency would allow the Fed to return to "its core business" of shoring up the dollar and keeping inflation low.
The Arizona senator accused his opponent of resisting reforms of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and planning tax increases that would turn "a recession into a depression". Mr Obama has promised tax cuts for over 90 per cent of Americans, but would increase rates for the highest earners.
The campaigns yesterday attacked each other's economic credentials. An Obama advertisement highlighted Mr McCain's ties to President George W Bush and Phil Gramm, the former senator who led the 1990s deregulation of banking and who recently called the US "a nation of whiners".
"They think the economy is fundamentally strong. We know they're fundamentally wrong," the commercial said, mocking Mr McCain's expression of faith in US economic fundamentals on Monday. - ( Financial Timesservice)