World leaders are due to start meeting in mid-November in Washington to assess the world financial crisis. The sessions are designed to ease what economists say could be a long and deep downturn. There will be other summits extending into next year and the next president's term.
The badly needed gatherings will feature leaders of Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and the United States, the European Union, China, Brazil, India, Russia, South Korea and some other major economies. The goal is to hash out what has happened and how to fix it. The new U.S. president will not take office until Jan. 20, but there is speculation that the winner of the Nov. 4 election will be invited to participate in talks before his inauguration. The Bush White House needs to generate thrust for solutions even if Bush is a lame duck.
In recent discussions of the meltdown, several American and international leaders have been asked what they believe is most important at this stage. In almost every case, the two C's that have dominated the suggestions have been "coordination and confidence."
The United States and the world need hefty servings of both. First, the numerous nations that will be represented at the November summit must brush aside personal desires and aspirations for the "good of the order," the world economy which is so vital to everyone. We cannot have narrow-minded and selfish participants, America included, focusing on personal preferences.
The term "coordination" means just that - various parties working as unselfishly as possible for an overall solution that will benefit everyone. The goal is to make the international financial system stronger and more secure. That will demand give and take in many categories by all the nations.
Then there is the element of "confidence." Regardless of the mechanical actions selected to right the troubled financial ship, leaders must create an atmosphere that gives non-participants confidence that repairs can be made and that a return to some semblance of normalcy is possible.
Free markets, free enterprise and free trade, key items in what president Bush calls democratic capitalism, are important. But there may be some short-term regulatory actions that are needed and should not be blindly tossed aside.
Coordination and confidence are needed everywhere. If there are sufficient amounts of both coming out of the sessions, there is good reason to hope for a brighter future for everyone.
Comments
Godot 8 years, 10 months ago
No one will have confidence or demonstrate cooperation without full disclosure by all the governments and financial entities. There must be a requirement of strict adherence to transparency and accountability.The world's financial barons need to tell each other, and us, the truth.They need to disclose what they have on their balance sheets - everything. Then they need to mark their assets and liabilities to their true value. The businesses and agencies that are broke must be forced into bankruptcy. The governments must stop propping up the corrupt institutions; they must let them fail, and the sooner the better. Printing more money and pumping it into the system in an effort to hide the truth about the debt the world has created only makes the problem worse.Show us the real situation, tell us how bad it really is, let us deal with it. Jail the corrupt politicians and bureaucrats and the money changing frauds who paid them off.Hopefully the world will learn, again, as it has every two or three generations, that debt is not income; that debt does not create wealth, it destroys it.
Godot 8 years, 10 months ago
Here is an example of 1) the reason the massive injection of money into the banking system by Treasury Secretary Paulson is nothing more than Congressionally sanctioned and approved theft from the US taxpayers to benefit powerful Wallstreet investment banks and their stockholders, and 2) why there is no cooperation nor confidence. There is no honor among thieves, be they bankers, senators, congressional representatives, presidents or their pretenders. "NYT COLUMNIST TAPS JPM CONF CALL; FIRM HAS NO INTENTION OF USING $25B TARP FUNDS TO INCREASE LOANS-NYT columnist Joe Nocera monitored a recent high-level executive only JPM conference call quoting an executive from JP Morgan's plans for the $25B TARP funds. The executive stated to the call that the banks focus would instead be on using its stronger balance sheet to acquire weak rivals and pick through the wreckage to the banks advantage. He referred to the TARP capital as a "nice backstop" -JPM on the call was quoted as saying bank loan volumes have "slowed dramatically" "
Mike Blur 8 years, 10 months ago
The best thing the Bush White House can do to assist in the upcoming meetings is stay as far away as possible. His mere presence at those meetings is sure to cause feelings of rancor and bitterness when the world needs a step forward from the failed economic and diplomatic policies of the past 8 years.Bush has succeeded in confusing "confidence" with "hubris" with every decision he has made since January 20, 2001. Please, send him elsewhere...maybe Palin's house so he can keep an eye on them Rooskies.
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