He will meet his economic advisers and brief press as transition of power picks up
Mr Obama stands to inherit the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. -- PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS
CHICAGO - PRESIDENT-ELECT Barack Obama was meeting on Friday with economic experts to discuss the first steps toward healing the damaged US economy as he forms a new administration in the face of a worsening crisis.
Mr Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden were to meet with 17 members of their transition economic advisory board. Members include former presidential Cabinet officials and executives from Xerox Corp., Time Warner Inc., Google Inc. and the Hyatt hotel company.
Famed billionaire investor Warren Buffett was participating by telephone.
'We're not starting from nowhere,' said Lawrence Summers, a Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton and one of the members of the advisory board.
'Throughout his campaign the president-elect has been talking about what we need to do. We need to put the middle class at the center of the policy approach in a way that it hasn't been these last years,' Mr Summers told NBC television Friday morning.
After the meeting, Mr Obama is to hold a press conference that would be his first public appearance since he trounced Republican John McCain in Tuesday's election to become America's first black president.
Exit polls from the election showed that the economy was far and away the top issue for voters. More evidence of a recession came Friday when the government reported that the unemployment rate had jumped from 6.1 per cent in September to 6.5 per cent in October.
Mr Obama has been meeting privately with his transition team, receiving congratulatory phone calls from US allies and intelligence briefings, and making decisions about who will help run his government after he is sworn in Jan 20.
His first choice, for White House chief of staff, was Rahm Emanuel, a fiery partisan unafraid of breaking glass and hurting feelings. The choice of Mr Emanuel is a significant departure from the soft-spoken, low-key aides that 'No-Drama Obama' surrounded himself with during the campaign. And transition chief John Podesta, like Mr Emanuel, is a former top aide to President Bill Clinton and a tough partisan infighter, though less bombastic than the new chief of staff.
The selections are telling for Mr Obama, who campaigned as a nontraditional, almost 'post-partisan' newcomer. People close to him say the selections show he is aware of his strengths and weaknesses, and knows what he needs to be successful as he shifts from campaigning to governing.
Mr Obama and his wife, Michelle, planned to visit the White House on Monday at President George W. Bush's invitation.
Mr Obama planned to stay home through the weekend, with a blackout on news announcements so he and his staff can rest after the grueling campaign and the rush of Tuesday night's victory.
Mr Obama, who bested Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, has made it clear he will rely heavily on veterans of her husband's eight-year administration, the only Democratic presidency in the past 28 years.
Mr Podesta was Bill Clinton's chief of staff, and several other former Clinton aides are on Obama's short lists for key jobs, Democratic officials say. Some helped write a large briefing book on how to govern, assembled under Podesta's supervision.
Mr Obama also is certain to bring to the White House a cadre of longtime aides like senior adviser David Axelrod and press secretary Robert Gibbs. Both have worked closely with Mr Obama since he ran for the Senate in 2004.
A steady stream of world leaders have congratulated Obama, including Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad's statement marked the first time an Iranian leader has offered such wishes to a US president-elect since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Iran and the US have had no formal diplomatic relations since 1979 and the hostage drama when militant Iranian students held 52 Americans captive 444 days.
Mr Obama spoke by telephone with other world leaders including Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
On Thursday, The Associated Press declared Mr Obama the winner in North Carolina, a symbolic triumph in a state that hadn't voted for a Democrat since 1976. That brings Mr Obama's electoral vote total to 364 - nearly 100 more than necessary to win the White House.
Missouri was the only state that remained too close to call. -- AP
