A 'Must See!' film from the ruefully brilliant mind of Michael Moore
Typically, Michael Moore’s brand of cynicism and his Liberal take on the great issues of American politics is not my cup of tea because I am by bearing and temperament far more a pragmatist in nature. (Now, here comes the ‘but.’)
But after being invited to a pre-screening of his most recent film, ‘Capitalism: A Love Story,’ due to be released 2nd October 2009, I think, like Jon Stewart, the guy is a virtuosity. I highly recommend plopping down your $20 bucks per person — or whatever it costs these days — for a ticket and a bag of stale popcorn to see it. You can start by viewing the movie trailer below.
Watching the film, I felt like Michael had climbed inside my head, made a list of all the things that have been obsessing me for the last 12 months, and brought them horrifyingly to life. It’s one thing to know these things are happening; it’s another to see them happening in front of your eyes.
Right from the beginning — after a funny set-up juxtaposing End of Empire Rome and Modern America — Michael goes directly to the beating heart of the economic crisis, showing a hard-working, middle class family being evicted from their home. The knot in your stomach starts to tighten — and the outrage starts to build. Read more here.
Moore’s own take on his latest film..?? “I made this movie as if it was going to be the last movie I was allowed to make.” And, on the film itself, “It’s got it all - lust, passion, romance and 14,000 jobs being eliminated every day.”
In its World Economic Outlook, the fund’s prognosis was marginally better than its prediction in July that growth in 2010 would reach 2.5 percent. But it emphasized that the upswing was mainly a result of aggressive crisis management in the United States, Europe and Asia, not a self-sustaining recovery.“Premature exit from accommodative monetary and fiscal policies seems a significant risk, because the policy-induced rebound might be mistaken for the beginning of a strong recovery in private demand,” the fund wrote. It added that the “fragile global economy” was still vulnerable to other potential shocks, including a run-up in oil prices, a widespread outbreak of swine flu, global political events and protectionism.
The forecast masked significant differences among regions, the monetary fund said. It predicted China’s economy would register 9 percent growth next year.But the United States can expect an expansion of 1.5 percent, and the 16-nation euro zone a 0.3 percent growth rate, weak performances for advanced industrial economies.The I.M.F. had previously forcasted the American economy would contract 2.7 percent for all of 2009, and the euro zone’s would shrink 4.2 percent. The forecasts come as the monetary fund acknowledged that the world was emerging from a difficult recession, helped by stimulus policies in the United States, Europe and China.
“The global economy appears to be expanding again, pulled up by the strong performance of Asian economies and stabilization or modest recovery everywhere,” the fund wrote.
The monetary fund emphasized what private sector economists have observed about the upswing, that it is driven mainly by a rebuilding of depleted inventories. But the fund also said there were “some signs of gradually stabilizing retail sales, returning consumer confidence and firmer housing markets.”
But it also observed that rising joblessness remained a threat. “Unemployment rates are expected to remain at high levels over the medium term in a number of advanced economies,” it stated.
World Bank warns of Greenback's declining role in global finance
(NYT) WASHINGTON — The president of the World Bank said on Monday that America’s days as an unchallenged economic superpower might be numbered and that the dollar was likely to lose its favored position as the euro and the Chinese renminbi assume bigger roles.
Zoellick
“The United States would be mistaken to take for granted the dollar’s place as the world’s predominant reserve currency,” the World Bank president, Robert B. Zoellick, said in a speech at the School for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins. “Looking forward, there will increasingly be other options to the dollar.”Mr. Zoellick, who previously served as the United States trade representative and as deputy secretary of state under President George W. Bush, said that the euro provided a “respectable alternative” for financing international transactions and that there was “every reason to believe that the euro’s acceptability could grow.” In the next 10 to 20 years, he said, the dollar will face growing competition from China’s currency, the renminbi. Though Chinese leaders have minimized their currency’s use in international transactions, largely so they could keep greater control over exchange rates, Mr. Zoellick said the renminbi would “evolve into a force in financial markets.”
‘The United States would be mistaken to take for granted the dollar’s place as the world’s predominant reserve currency.’ -World Bank president, Robert B. Zoellick
The World Bank, which is financed by governments around the globe and lends money primarily to poor countries, has no say over the economic policies of large nations or over currency matters.But Mr. Zoellick’s comments were unusual, in part because he seemed intent on being provocative. He argued that the United States and a handful of other rich nations could no longer dominate the world economy and suggested that America was losing its clout. He also took issue with a central piece of the Obama administration’s proposal regarding the country’s financial regulatory system.
“The greenback’s fortunes will depend heavily on U.S. choices,” Mr. Zoellick said. “Will the United States resolve its debt problems without a resort to inflation? Can America establish long-term discipline over spending and its budget deficit?”Read more here.
In yet another example of its increasingly competitive global strategy, China is shopping aggressively for commodity resources in the Dark Continent. If you’ve kept up to date as I try to with China’s oversea investments in the African continent’s commodity and energy sectors you’re probably aware of the fact China has been shopping for commodities in emerging markets. Africa, and to a lesser extent South America, have been the primary beneficiaries of China’s FDI dollars between 2000-08. The two continents are home to abundant supplies of natural resources that China needs to sustain its robust economic growth. The two continents are also home to various countries that are hungry for foreign direct investment in their commodity sectors which until recent had been the main fuel behind their respective economics booms.
Under China’s foreign policy principle of ‘no political strings attached,’ China’s trade with the continent has no hidden ideological agenda. China and most Africa nations share the view that countries should not meddle in each other’s affairs. They have acknowledged that they can achieve common development only through cooperation based on mutual trust and mutual benefit. The pursuit of their own interests has brought them closer. Economic cooperation between the two sub-continents has grown at a robust pace. And China has stated its ambitions to move its trade with Africa to top $100 billion by 2010. That’s why this piece from today’s Financial Times of London is so interesting:
Lagos (FT) — A Chinese state-owned oil company is in talks with Nigeria to buy large stakes in some of the world’s richest oil blocks in a deal that would eclipse Beijing’s previous efforts to secure crude overseas. The attempt could pitch the Chinese into competition with western oil groups, including Shell, Chevron, Total and ExxonMobil, which partly or wholly control and operate the 23 blocks under discussion. Sixteen licenses are up for renewal.
CNOOC, one of China’s three energy majors, is trying to buy 6bn barrels of oil, equivalent to one in every six barrels of the proven reserves in Nigeria, sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest crude producer and a major supplier to the US.
Details of the talks were revealed in a letter from the office of Umaru Yar’Adua, Nigeria’s president, to Sunrise, CNOOC’s representative, a copy of which was obtained by the Financial Times. The overall value of the Chinese offer is not disclosed, although some details suggest a figure of about $30bn. Some oil sector executives said the total on the table was $50bn. A spokesman for Mr Yar’Adua said: “Negotiations are ongoing not only with Sunrise/CNOOC but also with all other stakeholders in the industry. The federal government has not taken any final position on the issue.”
The letter, dated August 13, said an initial offer was “unacceptable” but added: “Your interest in all the listed blocks will be considered if your revised offer is favourable.”Details of how the Nigerian government would allocate equity in the blocks to CNOOC have yet to emerge and it is unclear whether this would involve forcing western groups to relinquish stakes. Read more here.
Guru Greenspan endorses Obama Consumer Protection agency.
A keystone of Obama’s Wall Street reform agenda is getting support from the unlikeliest of corners. Alan Greenspan, an acolyte of Ayn Rand and extreme free-marketeer, is backing one of the most far-reaching elements of the financial overhaul: the Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Greenspan told the Washington Post that pushing for the CFPA was “probably the right decision.” Given the former Fed chairman’s penchant for obliquity, the straight-forward endorsement takes on greater weight.
Wall Street and community bankers argue that the proposed agency will restrict financial innovation and otherwise inhibit economic growth. Those are the types of arguments that Greenspan was prone to make during his tenure as chairman, but the financial crisis has persuaded Greenspan that the “intellectual edifice” buttressing radical free-market ideology has, in his words, “collapsed.”
Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.), the lead backer of the CFPA in the House Financial Services Committee, recalled the Greenspan opposed consumer protections while he was chairman. “It’s a dramatic turnaround from his public position and even more so, apparently, from what he was privately pushing within the deliberations at the Fed,” he told HuffPost. Greenspan has acknowledged that the collapse has led to a crisis of faith. “I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms,” Greenspan said at a House hearing last October under questioning from Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA). “In other words,” said Waxman, moving in for the kill, “you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right, it was not working.”
“Absolutely, precisely,” said Greenspan. “You know, that’s precisely the reason I was shocked, because I have been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well.”
It’s one thing to reject a failed ideology, but another altogether to embrace the kind of regulation represented by the CFPA. “He has already said that he erred in assuming that the market would take care of things–the Ayn Rand point of view–but this seems to go farther than he’s gone before in calling for a new agency to protect consumers from financial products,” said Miller. Greenspan told the Post that the Fed has enough responsibilities to manage and that consumer protection would be too much. Miller noted that Greenspan’s position is “diametrically opposite of what leadership at the Fed are saying now.”
Top Fed officials are pushing to make consumer protection a core Fed responsibility. But Democrats passed a law in 1994 requiring the Fed to adopt rules protecting financial consumers. When the GOP took over Congress in 1995, the Fed decided not to act. It didn’t write the rules until Democrats retook Congress in 2007 and began work on a new set of laws. “The damage was already done,” noted Miller.
The CFPA would gauge the safety of financial products and be given broad powers to require understandable explanations of the terms of financial instruments and otherwise restrict behavior that now goes on unmolested. It was first proposed by Harvard Prof. Elizabeth Warren, the head of the congressional panel overseeing the financial bailout. It is fiercely opposed by the banking lobby. Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) earlier postponed a vote on the agency until after the August recess. The banking lobby’s stiff resistance made it difficult for the chairman to be sure he had enough votes to pass it. The vote is now expected in October.
Last week, Frank issued a memo to committee members outlining proposed changes to the original package, which had been blasted by the Chamber of Commerce for over-reaching and going so far as to regulate butchers who give meat on credit.The original bill would have required financial institutions to offer standard, “plain vanilla” financial products meeting certain basic guidelines for transparency and safety. That requirement has been dropped, according to the memo, which was obtained by HuffPost. Some consumer advocates expressed alarm at the proposed changes, but others following it closely say that the changes are largely technical and that the real fight is yet to come.
New York (DealBook) - Earlier this week, Allianz, the German insurer, announced that it would be de-listing from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). For good measure, it also said that it would delist from the London, Milan, Paris and Swiss stock exchanges in order to concentrate its trading liquidity on the Deutsche Borse.
In the same week, Shanda Games Ltd., one of China’s leading online games companies, priced its initial public offering on the Nasdaq, raising more than $1 billion.
The two events point to the future direction of the global stock listings market.
Capital markets have matured in Europe, and foreign issuers in those countries no longer feel a compelling need to list on the United States stock exchanges. Meanwhile, the emerging stock markets, and Hong Kong and Shanghai markets in particular, are still developing, and issuers located there are looking abroad to list, raise capital and elevate their profile and share price. Read more here.
‘[W]hen a superpower becomes an agent of change—in word and deed, in policy and tone…we are demonstrating that the United States is willing to listen, respect differences, show mutual respect and consider new ideas from nations large and small. Even more importantly, we are advancing our interests and making Americans safer.’
–United StatesUN Ambassador, Susan E. Rice
The blog covers largely the main points President Obama will address as he attempts to re-establish the U.S. to a position of global leadership through a set of initiatives titled ‘A New Era of Engagement’with the world introduced earlier this year by his U.N. Ambassador, Susan E. Rice. The Caucus blog also covers — or attempts to — the various global markets and economic foreign policy issues facing leaders of nations in attendance at this session of the UN General Assembly. Among the topics high on the Economic Foreign Policy agenda are:
Economic Imbalances resulting from the Global financial crisis
Agreeing on a global framework for financial regulatory reforms
President Obama called on big developing powerhouses like India and China to commit to “strong measures” to combat climate change around the world, saying that rich countries which have contributed to much of the world’s global warming cannot fix the problem alone.
“Yes, the developed nations that caused much of the damage to our climate over the last century still have a responsibility to lead,” Mr. Obama said, speaking before a United Nations summit on climate change that is being held on the outskirts of the opening of the General Assembly. “And we will continue to do so — by investing in renewable energy, promoting greater efficiency, and slashing our emissions to reach the targets we set for 2020 and our long term goal for 2050.” But then, without specifically naming them, Mr. Obama shifted the onus on to India and China. “Those rapidly growing developing nations that will produce nearly all the growth in global carbon emissions in the decades ahead must do their part as well,” he said. “They need to commit to strong measures at home and agree to stand behind those commitments just as the developed nations must stand behind their own. We cannot meet this challenge unless all the largest emitters of greenhouse gas pollution act together. There is no other way.”
As he spoke, Chinese Premier Hu Jintao sat in the front row with his delegation, listening. Mr. Obama, speaking in the cavernous hall at the United Nations, was the headline speaker in a disparate program put together by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, which spanned . . .
The political dilemma of public outrage: Guns vs. Band-aids
Health care on first blush may not seem like a topic natural to a Global Markets and Foreign Policy blog.But to the extent that it is an issue of comparative political economy; and to the extent that it is an issue that accounts for approximately 17% of the U.S. GDP and growing rapidly, well, then it seems quite natural, actually. My first admission, however, is this: I am perplexed. No, not on the topic of healthcare reform, in and of itself.On the one hand, Americans resist government efforts to repair a Healthcare system that everyone acknowledges is broken; but on the other hand willingly tolerate the “Free-market” pilferage of consumers by the private sector Health Insurance industry in a system that severely hinders the global competitiveness of our nation. President Obama said as much in a recent radio interview, noting:
‘Passing a big bill like this is always messy. FDR was called a socialist when he passed Social Security. JFK and Lyndon Johnson, they were both accused of a government takeover of health care, when they passed Medicare. This is the process we go through because the American people have a long tradition of being suspicious of government, until the government actually does something that helps them, and then they don’t want anybody messing with [it] afterwards.’– Pres. Obama
Even more, I’m also perplexed, as Rachel Maddow pointed out recently, that the people most likely to benefit from healthcare reforms have been ginned up into populist rage to oppose it by fear-mongers using vile partisan antics. It’s ironic isn’t it, that the states, largely in the South and the West, that have been most skeptical of President Obama’s agenda for health care reform also have the highest levels of uninsured people in the nation..??Precisely the population that’s most causing the rest of the nation’s healthcare system to buckle under its cost.Take this one fringe Conservative extremist, Kenneth Gladney for example, who allegedly got himself beat-up trying to hi-jack a Town Hall meeting in St. Louis, MO. It turns out Gladney had just gotten laid-off from his job, and had to end up begging for donations to pay his medical bill from the melee. President Obama’s health reform proposal would protect people in precisely such a situation. When in doubt, lie and obfuscate the issue, then resort to a falsetto’s brand of “patriotism.”Standard GOP play book.Where is the compassion among the “compassionate conservatives”..??
After all, the cost of providing health care to 48 million uninsured Americans is economically and practically, unsustainable. Medical costs are soaring at twice the rate of inflation. Even if you don’t pay the bills directly, you see the medical inflation rate in higher insurance premiums, deductibles and co-pays. And just what are we getting for the money..??A system that already limits our choice of doctors & hospitals; often doesn’t cover necessary services; forces patients to satisfy a complex labryinth of procedures and paperwork just to get reimbursed; keeps us tethered to a job we might not enjoy for fear of losing health benefits, and strands us without affordable protection if you lose coverage after experiencing health problems – sometimes even minor ones.
Even Fidel Castro raised an interesting point on the Healthcare debate. It is admittedly difficult to take seriously much of anything Castro has to say.But on this one point, it seems he has a prescient point.Castro criticized the U.S. recently for being willing to spend billions on our high-tech military – sometimes even for toys we don’t need – but finding it difficult to approve healthcare reform that would protect the poorest among us. He wrote in a commentary published on a state-run Internet site that huge military budgets are approved easily by the U.S. Congress, but noted that President Obama is struggling to convince federal lawmakers to pass a bill that would “deliver health services to 50 million Americans that don’t have [healthcare protection].”
He is right. We spend over $1 Trillion per year on our military-industrial infrastructure – about one half of the annual Federal budget, excluding debt service on military spending – but only about $200 Bn on government-sponsored healthcare to our populations most in need of it – the poor, working-class and middle-class Americans. Yet many Americans, as recent Town Hall meetings indicate, seem grudging, parochial and petty in their consideration of this most pressing of social issues – especially considering that the majority of uninsured are the nation’s most vulnerable women and children.
‘Huge military budgets are approved easily by the U.S. Congress, but President Obama is struggling to convince federal lawmakers to pass a bill that would “deliver health services to 50 million Americans that don’t have healthcare protection.”‘ — Fidel Castro
The main stumbling block against providing health insurance for all Americans is the question of how to pay for it. Of the President’s $1 Trillion proposed plan, $800 Bn is already accounted for through the existing group of federal health plans – Medicare, Medicaid, Children and Veterans Healthcare, and the Prescription drug plan – passed by the previous Bush administration, but never funded. To fund the prescription plan, the White House negotiated $80 Bn concession from the Private health insurance industry and approximately $20 Bn concession from the Pharmaceutical industry. The government will need to find a way to plug the remaining $100 Bn revenue hole to subsidize those not getting it through workplace or unable to pay otherwise — about $100 billion. That’s what all the wrangling going on in Congress is about.
Marginal tax rates can and should be raised on high-earners as one source – for example, income earners making over $500,000 a year. But another very viable funding source, albeit never mentioned, can come from a 10% reallocation in military spending, which now is running amok at over $600 billion annually – that figure does not include (1) veterans benefits, (2) the 80% of interest costs on the national debt which comes from bonds issued for military operating and capital expenditures, and (3) the secret budget of our nation’s intelligence agencies. Most knowledgeable intelligence analystestimate the total U.S. military budget at approximately $1.2 Tn of the federal governments $2.5 Tn annual budget. The Pentagon’s spending rate is now higher than it was at the height of the Cold War, and is about one-half of the entire world’s military spending, and we spend six times more than the next largest military spending nation, China, although they have 20% of the world’s population, while we have only about five percent of the world’s population.
It seems clear the military budget in the U.S. is a sacred cow and, according to Republicans, a matter of “patriotism” while attending to the health and wellness of our citizens is not. We are Sparta, it appears, rather than enlighten Athens.
It has been reasonably well known for some time that the U.S. spend more per capita on health care than any other country – developed, or not. What may be less well known is that the U.S. has the highest medical inflation rate in the world.That is, it has the highest growth rates in per capita health care spending since 1980 among high income countries. In fact, the medical inflation rate in the U.S. is rising faster than the nation’s economic growth, and three times faster than real wages – which in recent years is actually declining. In simplest terms, that means if we do nothing the problem only gets bigger, faster.
So what drives health care spending..??In the U.S., chronic, but preventable diseases — obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer — accounts for fully 75 percent of health care spending.It has been reasonably well known for some time that the U.S. spend more per capita on health care than any other country – developed, or not. What may be less well known is that the U.S. has the highest medical inflation rate in the world.That is, it has the highest growth rates in per capita health care spending since 1980 among high income countries. In fact, the medical inflation rate in the U.S. is rising faster than the nation’s economic growth, and three times faster than real wages – which in recent years is actually declining. In simplest terms, that means if we do nothing the problem only gets bigger, faster.
In the clearest terms, the National Coalition on Health Care(NCHC) – a rigorously non-partisan, non-profit public interest organization – has a website outlining the gravity of the issue with a compelling set of empirical data that frames the issue, and what it means to us. Among other things, here’s a concise list showing how this extraordinary escalation in health care costs and insurance premiums affects several segments of our economy:
1.Surging health care costs slow the rate of job growth by making it more expensive for companies to add new workers. They also suppress wage increases for current workers by driving up total compensation costs.
2.As health care costs rise, corporate operating margins are cut, which reduces the capacity of firms to grow by investing in research, plant and equipment.
3.High and escalating out-of-pocket costs are forcing families to delay mortgage payments or sell their homes, cut back on normal household expenses such as for food and utilities, and take on onerous medical debt.
4.High medical costs can require retired families to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars out of their savings for out-of-pocket health care expenses.
5.High insurance costs are eroding the ability of firms to fund current levels of pension and health benefits.
6.They put American firms at a steep disadvantage in world markets, where they have to compete against companies with much lower health care costs in the nations where they operate.
7.Rapidly escalating costs are producing severe long-term budgetary problems in the public sector affecting the solvency of federal and state health insurance programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid.
We have reached the point where the public’s main domestic concerns — the economy, jobs, and health care — are really one and the same issue. Unless the health care cost crisis is addressed, we cannot assure robust economic growth, strong job creation, or financial security for American families as we struggle as a nation to recover from the global economic crisis. Healthcare reform is necessary to anyone who studies or understands the topic. The real issue it seems is what will ‘Healthcare reform” look like..??
On that score, the arguments about the comparative political economies of healthcare between developed industrial nations are familiar. Simply stated, it is the comparative measures of empirical outcomes between healthcare delivery systems in similar democratic-capitalist nations – for instance, between those of say the U.S., Britain, Canada, Japan, Australia, Germany and France. The evidence in most objective comparisons show that the U.S., while being the wealthiest nation, is also the only industrialized country in the world that does not have universal health care coverage for its citizens.
single payer system. On one end of the continuum, a few Scandinavian countries have the government own the entire care system and directly employ the care providers. Most others use a mixed model of government care and private care. Some European countries completely exclude the government from the entire process. Those countries use only private caregivers and they provide all coverage to their people exclusively through competing private, completely nongovernment health insurers — with no government coverage at all. The only thing we can conclude from looking at each of the many countries that have achieved universal coverage is that no two countries have chosen the same model.The models vary from one country to another. But what doesn’t vary is that every Industrial competitor, and even some emerging nations have managed to cover all of their citizens—even in destitute Cuba. And we have not.(Excerpts from Healthcare Will Not Reform Itself, by George C. Halverson.)
Don’t know who’s heading the Brazilian delegation..?? How the U.S. plans to face down challenges to President Obama’s import tariffs..?? Or what China really wants out of the Pittsburgh summit? We’ve got you covered.
BOSTON — The world is coming to Pittsburgh. Twenty countries (well, if you count the European Union as a single entity) and 20 delegations. That’s a lot of names, faces and political priorities to keep straight.
But don’t worry. Here’s our interactive guide to surviving the Pittsburgh 2009 G20 summit, put together by our friends at GlobalPost’ – affiliated bloggers and well-informed correspondents in the field worldwide.
Also, Huffington Post is reporting that a fresh threat of Protectionism is the most pressing concern being expressed by various leaders of G-20 nations.
As economies escape the grips of recession, the pressure to work together appears to be lessening. National economic self-interest [i.e.,Economic Nationalism] is reasserting itself. That includes a desire to protect battered home industries from overseas competition as governments look toward the day when they can dial back stimulus measures.
Will trade and finance globalization require world-wide Central Bank..??
When the finance ministers and central bankers of the world’s 20 largest economies gather in Pittsburgh on Sept. 24, they can congratulate themselves for averting a 1930s-type meltdown. But nothing the G-20 has done, or is likely to do, will prevent or substantially moderate the next global crisis. That will require deep-seated, global financial reforms. And for such change to take root, something else will be needed: the establishment of a global central bank.
I can hear the howls of critics. World Government! A Conspiracy of Bankers! In the U.S. Congress the aversion to such an institution would make the dogfight over health care look like a genteel dinner party. So right now there is zero chance that the U.S.—and other countries, such as China, that zealously guard their sovereignty—would support the idea. But if critics could suspend the hyperventilating for a few minutes, they’d realize a global central bank is becoming a necessity in today’s complex, interconnected world economy.
Why? Think about the responses to previous financial meltdowns—the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s, the Asian financial crisis and the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management in the 1990s, the Internet stock implosion early in this decade. Following each crisis, governments promised to create new rules and institutions—a fresh “financial architecture,” in the parlance of pundits. But little was done. As a result, each successive crisis has been worse than the last. Each has involved more countries and asset classes. Each has been more globally synchronized. Each has more clearly shown that private financial institutions compete too fiercely for markets and profits to regulate themselves. Bottom line: The cost of failing to implement a global structural response—the lost economic growth, the lives destroyed—has escalated dramatically.
At the heart of this reality is a simple fact: Governmental oversight remains national, while financial institutions are more globally intertwined. No top official denies this dichotomy. Jean Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, recently bemoaned the lack of international coordination needed to manage the “deeply integrated global economy.” U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner warned that “we need a common global solution to these markets, not separate regional solutions.”
As the current credit crisis has shown…Read morehere.
