It was tantamount to a dialogue of the deaf as a lame duck U.S. president tried to make himself understood by President Hamid Karzai in Kabul and President Asif Zardari in Islamabad.

With its myriad subcontractors, GM keeps 2.5 million people employed. But automakers, losing $2 billion to $3 billion a month, and their congressional supporters, pleaded for a slice of Treasury's $700 billion rescue package.

While the world economy is "slowing quickly" thanks to the subprime mortgage scandal, there isn't much President Obama can do over a longer period than anticipated. Reining in "unbridled" capitalism and paradigm shifts will have to wait. And euphoria is bound to be short-lived. But acting swiftly to re-engage the world is an imperative necessity.

As Wall Street's subprime Ponzi scheme engulfed much of the world's economy, academics and learned journals are debating what the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) calls "the wholesale reconsideration of the capitalist model and free market economic orthodoxy."