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President Elect Barack Obama unveiled his economic team yesterday at his second press conference since winning the election. The named economists were greeted with strong enthusiasm from Wall Street and the Republican Party. Obama also promised to unveil an economic stimulus package as soon as he takes office next year that is three times larger than what was proposed earlier, focusing on serious job creation through roadworks and other infrastructure development. Obama backed off from including in his plans, the repeal of tax cuts to the wealthy – a point he campaigned on before the election. The news of Citigroup’s impending failure strongly framed the press conference and has brought renewed characterizations that are now all-too-familiar: that this bank is too big to fail, prompting yet another bailout numbering in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

GUEST: Max Fraad Wolff, instructor at the Graduate Program in International Affairs at the New School University, is a frequent contributor to Huffington Post, Asia Times and The Indypendent