Cheap loo brushes signal a new dawn

The euphoria of the Obama swearing-in has very quickly been replaced here in Washington by the sober dawning of new morning. And a gloomy, overshadowed thing it feels to be.

The speech he made at the podium beneath the Capitol was less rhetorical and more content-strewn than most had expected, and much of the content related to the mountain to climb: debt, joblessness and the overall economic crisis.

It’s like being on a highly geared merry-go-round that suffers a sudden power cut – a big jolt. The appalling state of British banking is well matched here. Bank shares are in free fall. Obama’s key economic advisers meet with him today.

A bizarre glimpse of the market in Obama memorabilia trade suffering its own meltdown. I was offered five T-shirts for $4 late last night as I was walking back to my hotel. But Bush products weren’t doing much better either. A rather fetching Bush loo brush was available, reduced from $15 to $1.