The world will be watching us today

The eyes of the world will be on Australia’s stock markets when they open today.

That’s because they will be among the first to open, since the US Congress reached agreement on a $700 billion bail out for Wall Street.

The world now knows that the US Congress will approve the deal.

The US President, George W Bush, tried to sell it, by insisting that the deal was “not aimed at Wall Street, it is aimed at your street.”

Officials have been busy putting the final touches since then.

Although the deal is deeply unpopular with the US public, President Bush had a point.

US economists were predicting that three to four million Americans would have lost their jobs, over the next six months, if no deal had been struck.

However, the deal still smells bad.

Democrat negotiator, Barney Frank, acknowledged that.

“No solution to a problem can be more elegant than the problem itself,” he said.

The Republican presidential contender, John McCain, cut through most clearly, in the candidates’ debate, which was televised at the weekend,  when he promised to hold those who had caused Wall Street’s crisis “accountable” for what had happened.

The latest Roy Morgan research also showed that his Democrat rival, Barack Obama, scored best when he promised to “restore America’s standing in the world” and to bring the war in Iraq “to a close.”