Democrat Barack Obama accused his White House rival John McCain on Thursday of a week-long series of "rants" and policy reversals on the US financial crisis as he rolled out a new plan to arrest the decline.

Obama noted that McCain was now demanding the head of the US Securities and Exchange Commission for turning Wall Street into a "casino."

Instead, the Illinois senator invited voters on 4 November to "fire the whole trickle-down, on-your-own, look-the-other-way crowd in Washington who has led us down this disastrous path."

"Don't just get rid of one guy," Obama told a 9500-strong crowd dominated by native and Latino Americans in the battle-ground state of New Mexico.

"Get rid of this administration, get rid of this philosophy, get rid of the do-nothing approach to our economic problems, and put somebody in there who's going to fight for you."

Obama noted that McCain had long called for less regulation of Wall Street, but that now the Republican senator was railing against corporate "greed" after a slew of failures and government bailouts in the crisis-hit financial sector.

"You can't just run away from your long-held views or your life-long record," he said, attacking McCain's three-decade tenure in Congress.

"You can't erase 26 years of support for the very policies and people who helped to bring in some of the problems that we're seeing. You can't just erase all that with one week of rants."

Obama observed that on Tuesday, in three separate interviews, McCain had resisted a tax-payer bailout of the giant insurer American International Group, "despite the possibility that it would put millions of Americans at risk".

"But by Wednesday, he said he had changed his mind", and was now insisting Obama had opposed the bailout "despite no evidence whatsoever that that's what I had said".

"John McCain can't decide whether he's Barry Goldwater or Dennis Kucinich," Obama said, referring to the Republicans' hardline presidential nominee of 1964 and a hardcore liberal member of Congress today.

The Democrat said that on Friday in Florida, he would convene talks with his key economic advisers — including former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker to map a way out of the tumult shaking global markets.

Obama spoke separately Thursday by telephone with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and New York Mayor Mayor Michael Bloomberg to take stock of the crisis, his campaign said.

Offering new economic proposals, Obama called on the Treasury and the Fed to use their emergency powers to maintain the flow of credit, to ensure mortgages remain available and to keep the financial system supplied with capital.

He promoted new legislation in the form of a "Homeowner and Financial Support Act" to prop up the stricken US property market with lasting solutions instead of "the daily improvisations" of the Republican administration.

Notably, he said, the act would help struggling families to re-structure their mortgages on more affordable terms so they can stay in their homes.

McCain had insisted in Iowa that if he were president, he would fire SEC chairman Christopher Cox, although it was widely reported that the president does not have that power.

The Arizona senator also branded Obama's tax policies "just plain dumb", arguing the Democrat would raise taxes at a time of economic duress.

Obama lashed back that his plan would cut taxes for 95 percent of all working Americans, while McCain's would only extend tax relief for the richest Americans.

"My opponent doesn't want you to know this but under my plan, your taxes would be less than under (former Republican president) Ronald Reagan," he said.

"This is not a time for fear, this is not a time for panic. This is a time for resolve and it is a time for leadership," he added, tarring McCain as offering nothing more than a third term for current US President George W. Bush.

AFP