The Washignton Post reported on the International Economic Summit. The governments are “taking action” which means a government-induced economic disaster. If it is anything like the “help” of FDR’s “New Deal” it will extend economic dislocations for far longer than a normal business cycle. Here are excerpts from the article:
[T]he gathering in Washington of the nearly two dozen nations — from every region of the world — reflected the new balance of power emerging in the aftermath of a financial crisis that has devastated even well-run economies, a wrenching process that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has dubbed “the birth pangs of this new global order.”
Under the plans outlined by the leaders, countries such as China, Brazil and India would gain greater roles and responsibilities as part of a restructuring of the international financial system, while European leaders won a commitment to new regulations and controls on banks, rating agencies and exotic financial securities. The leaders also agreed that a dramatic failure of market oversight in “some advanced countries” was among the root causes of the financial crisis, an implicit rebuke of the United States.
“I’m a free market person,” President Bush told reporters after the summit ended, “until you’re told that if you don’t take decisive measures then it’s conceivable that our country could go into a depression greater than the Great Depression.”
