Obama
and Sarkozy in Paris, July 25. The two may godfather
a
new financial order that will encompass the world.
Liberation, France
The
Obama-Sarkozy Financial Alliance
"At the emergency G-8 meetings
in November, Bush will fortunately play a role limited to protocol. It will be
his successor, the president-elect, who will lead the negotiations for the
American side. And all the evidence right now points to that successor as being
Barack Obama."
The next American president
will find himself in a completely unprecedented situation: elected in the midst
of a financial storm the likes of which haven’t been seen since Roosevelt in
1932, he will for the first time have the European Union as his main partner -
coherent, resolute and bent on reforming the international financial system.
George Bush, on the other hand, hasn't hidden his distaste for global
regulation.
The financial crisis, having
been born in the United States as a direct result of reckless Anglo-Saxon
derivatives, renders it impossible for Bush to refuse the idea of holding
several G-8 meetings, expanded to include China, India, Brazil, Mexico, South
Africa and at least one Arab state, with the aim of examining the reform
proposals and debating them. To have refused these meetings would have signaled
a remarkable incapacity to gauge the importance of the ongoing financial and
emerging economic crisis on the part of the outgoing president. Bush has
already reacted slowly and, at least initially, clumsily to the emergence of a
storm that his country bears primary responsibility for. So he couldn't say no
to Nicolas Sarkozy, who came on behalf of Europeans [along with European
Commission President José Manuel Barroso] to propose
the meetings.
OBAMA-SARKOZY
PRESS CONFERENCE IN PARIS, JULY 25, 2008
But he did delay the meetings as long as he could, and he let it be known that he still thought that the market should be burdened with as few rules and regulations as possible. As the election of his successor will take place several weeks before the expanded G8 meeting [probably late in November], George Bush will fortunately play a role largely limited to protocol. It will be his successor, the president-elect, who will lead the negotiations for the American side. And all the evidence right now points to that successor as being Barack Obama. His victory would be the best chance for these reforms to succeed.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
On the European side, the
chief negotiator will be Nicolas Sarkozy, because he's the incumbent president
of the European Council; because he was able during the first weeks of the
crisis to impose his authority and dynamism like no one before him; and
especially because he took charge of people who have resolved to learn from the
current financial storm and put durable regulations in place.
Naturally, one can make
ironic comments about miraculous conversions (even though Sarkozy and Angela
Merkel have the distinction of jointly calling for more transparency and checks
on the markets in the autumn of 2007), or highlight the contradictions of deregulators
who suddenly fall in love with regulations. Fair enough. But the essential
remains: the Fifteen - and the Twenty-Seven (the old 15 members and full 27
members of the European Union) all agreed to introduce rules and regulations on
financial markets that previously had too little oversight. The most difficult
part lies ahead: convincing their partners to follow them on this path, because
the trick only works if all of the largest economies implement the same
principles at the same time.
2008 ELECTION
FUN: AN EXPERIMENT IN REVERSE PSYCHOLOGY
George Bush obviously won't
want to do this, but that's no longer important. John McCain would probably be
extremely reluctant, as the plan hardy corresponds to his ideology. But his
chances of winning diminish by the day. In contrast, Obama is a political
descendant of those who created the Bretton Woods Agreement in July, 1944 [a
deal to rebuild the financial system after WWII ]. Confronted with the ravages of
the financial crisis, he has on many occasions called reform of the
financial markets. His key economic advisers and his best-known supporters - starting
with Paul Krugman (the new Nobel laureate in
economics) - are in favor transparency and checks on financial markets. If Obama wins, a great Europe-United States alliance could be formed to enforce prudent accounting rules, fight tax havens and and not only regulate banks, but also insurance companies and those sophisticated derivatives that have eluded any oversight and all reason.
To that end, an
Obama-Sarkozy alliance would simplify and accelerate things. This is all to the
good, because both men want to work together, and they share the ambition of
being seen as reformers of the system. Both want to leave their mark and
succeed. Their cooperation would be ideologically impure [Sarkozy is a
conservative], but politically effective.
