Lame Duck Summit

November 3, 2008

3 November 2008

Lame Duck Summit

This article is excerpted from the 3 November 2008 edition of “The New York Times”.

President Bush will be the lamest of ducks by Nov. 15, when leaders of 20 nations meet in Washington to discuss the global financial crisis. With only two months left in office, he will not be around to implement any policy changes he proposes or agrees to.

Mr. Bush’s bigger problem is his utter lack of credibility when it comes to the central question of how to regulate national and global financial markets to ensure that this disaster never happens again. Eight years and a huge financial crash later, and Mr. Bush is still extolling the corrective powers of unrestrained markets.

Still, the meeting could not, and should not, wait until a more opportune time in America’s political cycle. With the world entering a United States-led recession, the global economic powers need to air their concerns and global markets need to see that political leaders are ready to work together to restore stability.

What this first meeting should not do is try to impose any real policy changes. With the crisis still unfolding, it’s too soon for extensive reforms. …

The summit meeting could still be useful if the leaders used it to begin a serious discussion about the roots of the financial crisis and agree to a series of future meetings to discuss substantive reforms.

They could start the process by calling for formation of an international high-level group of nongovernment experts to analyze the causes and implications of the crisis. Once there is some agreement, another group of experts could lay out a list of potential policy changes. That would give the next president a running start….


Topic(s): 
World Economy & Politics
Information Source: 
Canadian News Channel / International News Channel
Document Type: 
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