Presidential Elect Barack Obama held his first presidential press conference today following a meeting with his transition economic advisory board. His economic advisers were standing behind him at the press conference. From right to left, his advisers are William Daley, Robert Reich, Penny Pritzker, Roger Ferguson, Lawrence Summers, Anne Mulcahy, Richard Parsons, Paul Volcker, Rahm Emanual, Vice President Elect Biden, Jennifer Granholm, Robert Rubin, David Bonior, Laura Tyson, Antonio Villaraigosa, William Donaldson, Eric Schmidt, and Roel Campos. Obama spoke about the state of the economy and the new numbers about job losses. We have lost approximately 1.2 million jobs this year and more than 10 million American are now unemployed. He said that until January 20th, there is only one president and that president is the Bush Administration. Once he takes office, Obama said that he is going to attack the economic crisis head on. In terms of the new cabinet, Barack Obama did not make any specific statements regarding who he will be choosing. What he did say was that they will be working with "deliberate haste". When asked about the First Dog, Barack Obama said that this is a major issue and it has generated more interest on his web site than anything else. He talked about his two criteria for the dog: that it is hypoallergenic and a shelter dog. However, he did not give specifics about which breed they are looking for.
