Not surprising this news has come so fast on top of the apparently successful interventions to regulate financial capital.
Gordon Brown has always had the global economy in his sights, as a fitting global achievement that surpasses any peace Tony Blair might come to claim to have facilitated in the near East. Clearly now with the recession biting, the west cannot control the global economy on its own. China and India have to be brought in. China is needed to pursue a strategy wider than just sustaining the USA as a market for its exports, while it purchases strategic assets round the world. Brown's appeal to a solution that is "fair to all" is probably consistent with his social democratic aspirations. But it could well provide a veil for the rebalancing of the scales of economic power in the world, and greater global coordination of the world economy. It could be linked to massive Keynesian deficit spending on a world scale, with a major show of charity towards Africa to win credibility, and dilute China's march over this neglected continent. With the Washington consensus swept away, social democratic ideology may be the best candidate for the new hegemony to sanctify the political and economic compromises, that suddenly look increasingly plausible. Or that is the way it appears to be looking. Chris Burford http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7672514.stm "G8 backs financial reform summit The leaders of the G8 major industrialised nations have agreed to hold a summit with other states to discuss global financial reform. The move came as French President Nicolas Sarkozy said EU leaders had backed a plan to aid the bloc's banking sector at a summit in Brussels. UK PM Gordon Brown has called for the rebuilding of the IMF to help regulate the world's financial systems. ... In a joint statement, the leaders of the G8 countries - the US, UK, France, Italy, Germany, Canada, Japan and Russia - said that changes had to be made to the "regulatory and institutional regimes for the world's financial sectors to remedy deficiencies exposed by the current crisis". The statement added: "We look forward to a leaders' meeting with key countries at an appropriate time in the near future to adopt an agenda for reforms to meet the challenges of the 21st Century." Mr Brown told the BBC that the meeting would take place in "the next few weeks". In an interview with BBC Europe editor Mark Mardell, he said: "I believe that the action the G8 ministers are taking this evening... signifies a determination on our part at all times now to work together to make sure we can come through this financial difficulty fairly to all but with global action that is necessary to deal with this global crisis." _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
