track authority that most presidents since roosevelt have had. furthermore, the president is saying trust me i m a distinguished and subtle economic thinker. this is the president that says airport kiosks and ticket counters cause unemployment. on the secrecy, i think he has a point. a great diplomat george cannon i believe it was, said the formula is this. the likelihood of a negotiation reaching a happy conclusion increases by the scare of the number of parties involved. there are 12 nations involved in this so it s hideously complicated. if nation 3 knows that nation 8 has got something that it wants and that might aggravate nation 9, you can see how they want to keep this somewhat not transparent. julie, the white house is counting heads, literally, and do they have the juice to move this thing forward? i think that that is an open question right now. i don t think that they can count on this at this point. i think there s going to be a lot of work in trying to shore