The coming week will be interesting to watch. The G20 meeting in London comes with a threat of exploding protests in the streets. There’s also the threat of deepening rifts between the Anglo world and continental Europe. Czech EU president-of-the-day Mirek Topolanek, whose government had dissolved the day before, felt free to speak his mind for once, and called Obama's economic policies on stimulus and toxic assets "the road to hell". He didn't just speak for himself, many Europeans leaders see the situation in a similar fashion. And the more American and British politicians like Summers and Brown, and pundits like Krugman and Evans-Pritchard, holler about the disastrous manner in which Europe's leaders deal with their crises, the more they will defend it. So Obama has no choice but to hush the issue, and retrace his earlier -loud- steps.
Both sides clamor for changes to regulatory laws for the financial systems. But they don't mean the same changes. Europe wants to get rid of all the excesses caused by lax regulation induced by the political influence the banking system has, especially in the Anglo countries. The US wants to give more power to its own governmental bodies, that are essentially run by that very banking system. Europe will never ever accept anything of the kind. That's the second point Obama doesn't even have to try bring to the table. And of course it's the G20, it's not just Europe and the US/UK exchanging punches. China has launched a few trial-balloons in the past week on the topic of reserve currencies, and Russia and India would like a piece of that pie. None of these countries experience great benefits of the US dollar's special status, and they see a re-weighting of the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights as a first step towards a remake of the entire global finance system. And eventually they'll get it, but for now the risks for the US are so enormous that America will fight like a cornered feral cat.
And I'm starting to consider any and all talk about recovery and resuming growth to be borderline criminal behavior. So there.
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Your too polite about their criminal Behavior. We need leaders not followers of the Financial Elite. Leaders we don't have and this will be our demise as a great nation. Now, any nation full of greed can end up like Mexico! But the USA is sliding into poverty status, because the Wall St. robbers are grabbing all they can get and hiding as they watch the chaos begin to erupt. When you take away a life-style that people are use to and hand them back the poverty they were born into you will have a fight on your hands and it won't be healthy for the country or our economy. God help us all, we will need it!!
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