29/10/2013 00:00
TW
0

by RAY FLEMING
WHY is Washington to be the venue for the global financial crisis summit being held on November 15? President Bush has convened this meeting in response to pressure from various sources including the European Union and it will be attended by the so-called G-20 group that includes the G8 industrially developed countries and “emerging economy” nations like Brazil, China and India.

It is obvious that after the shock waves and aftershocks of the current financial upheaval there is a need for the nations of the world to meet to discuss how recovery can be managed and measures put in place to prevent a repeat performance. But why is the United States hosting the meeting? Its financial establishment is the principal cause of the current crisis, its government mishandled the first attempts at recovery and its President is a discredited lame duck. Granted, the US has the world's largest economy but that in itself should not give it the right to take on the role of an international arbiter. It is being said that because the US led the Bretton Woods conference in 1944, which created the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, it should lead again now. But in 1944 the United Nations hardly existed and the world was still at war.

The danger is that the November 15 meeting will be another Bush showpiece like the Annapololis meeting on solving the Israeli-Palestinian problem which in fifteen subsequent months has achieved absolutely nothing. The global economy deserves better.