Barack Obama will have his campaign promises put to the test on Friday as he meets with economic advisers to discuss his transition to the White House and holds his first news conference as U.S. president-elect.
After two straight days of huge losses on Wall Street, for a decline of roughly 10 percent since Tuesday's election, Obama will seek advice from seasoned economists, businessmen and policy experts on how to deal with the country's worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
Obama, who won a sweeping victory in Tuesday's election in part because of his promise to revitalize the U.S. economy, has assembled a 17-member transition economic advisory board to help him as he tries to decide who to put on his White House team and how to implement promised measures.
The board includes former Treasury secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers, former Labor secretary Robert Reich, Google Inc <GOOG.O> chairman Eric Schmidt, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and billionaire Warren Buffett.
After the meeting, at 1330 CST (1930 GMT), Obama will face the news media for the first time since Tuesday's historic win, which will make him the first black American president when he is inaugurated on Jan. 20.
In addition to the economy, Obama will likely face questions about who he plans to appoint to various Cabinet posts and other aspects of the transition.
The meeting with economic advisers comes after reports of even more of a slowdown in U.S. productivity growth. More bad economic news is expected on Friday when analysts expect the Labor Department to announce a huge drop in jobs in October.
Obama has acknowledged the pressing urgency of revitalizing the economy and he is expected to quickly make choices about key appointments to his economic team. It was not clear if he would make any top-level appointments at the news conference or by the end of the week.
The market is looking closely at who Obama will name as Treasury Secretary. Top candidates for the job included Timothy Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Summers and Volcker.
A Reuters poll of economists found 26 of 48 respondents thought Geithner would be chosen for the job, while Summers came second with 14 votes.
Whoever takes the Treasury job will guide the $700 billion economic bailout package and the regulatory reform needed to prevent a repeat of the current crisis.
Obama and his economic advisers will likely talk about the $700 billion package and also about a possible second fiscal stimulus package the Democratic-dominant Congress is expected to address when it returns to Washington.
"We expect President-elect Obama to move decisively to address economic stress," said Jan Hatzius, senior economist at Goldman Sachs. "We suspect he will support even more fiscal stimulus than the $200 billion we have penciled into our forecast. Congress could move on this even before the change-over on January 20."
The economic advisers may also discuss how to help U.S. automakers, who are facing an unprecedented financial crisis due to the global credit crunch. The automakers are lobbying for up to $50 billion in additional aid.
