Mr. President-elect, about that "test".....

While we Americans are naturally focused on our own country's economic crisis, the other nuclear superpower is also having problems. Aside from an unstable currency and the threat of bank runs, Russia is being harmed rather than helped by falling oil prices, since fossil-fuel exports are a major source of its income.

If you think this is good for us, think again. The aggressive Putin regime is not the enfeebled Soviet state of 1991. It might react to the crisis by reining in military spending and pulling in its horns, but it might also do what authoritarian states in trouble have often done in the past -- try to rally the masses around the leader by fomenting conflict with some foreign power. The accession of a US President whom Moscow doubtless views as weak and naive will make the latter option all the more tempting. Biden's comment that Obama would be "tested" may prove all too prophetic.

Obama's appointment of a tough realist like Rahm Emanuel as his Chief of Staff is one of the few positive signs since the election. Now let's hope that he, unlike the present occupant of the White House, actually listens to the people he's hired instead of to his "gut".