G20 leaders begin talks to bury 'free' markets

The Times of London Online ^ | March 2, 2009 | Philippe Naughton

[mentor2k]

G20 leaders and ministers sat down to hammer out new rules for world financial markets today after a warning from France and Germany that a London summit should declare an end to the unfettered capitalism that has plunged the global economy into recession.

Opening a plenary session at the G20 summit in Docklands, Gordon Brown told the assembled heads of state and government and their finance ministers that the draft communique already on the table "reflects a high degree of consensus between us".

In comments picked up by television cameras before journalists were ushered from the hall, the Prime Minister said that the meeting should focus on paragraphs 14 to 17 of the draft text - those dealing with "global financial institutions and global regulation".

[mentor2k]

So, the United States President is with world financial leaders discussing the end of Capitalism. Is anyone surprised?

[swatbuznik]

“Nuke the site. It’s the only way to be sure.”

[PubliusMM]

Pandering hypocritical LibTard gasbags!

It’s capitalism that built the greatest Nation in the history of the world, defeated the advance of Communism, and brought freedom to untold millions. These shmucks ought to be seeking ways to get government out of the way, and taking the incrementally applied handcuffs off the greatest, most productive engine of progress that the world has ever seen.

It’s time to take back the country.

[mentor2k]

I entered the date of the article incorrect. It should read April 2, 2009

[paulycy]

We’re in this mess because the United States tried socializing home mortgages. With pressure from congress, the capitalists tried to turn it into a profit making enterprise which, as we now see, was impossible. Debt is real and must be paid.

Now this failed socialist policy will be used to kill the only golden goose the planet has to rebuild a strong economy.

Goodbye to us.

[Le Chien Rouge]

Ripley: I say we nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. Hudson: F*&kin' A...

[EBH]

HIGHLIGHTS - G20 Summit draft communique
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20090402/tbs-g20-communique-7318940.html

[EBH]

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE52T46820090330?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=10452

Interesting, I am looking for the communique and specifically 14-17 online. Can’t seem to find it...anyone else?

[EBH]

Found it! http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f6f30eaa-1c88-11de-977c-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1

Reforming financial systems for the future

14. We recognise that weaknesses in the financial sector and in financial regulation and supervision were fundamental causes of the crisis. To ensure no such crisis occurs again we have taken, and will continue to take, action to build a stronger supervisory and regulatory framework for the future, in line with the commitments we made in Washington. The financial system must support sustainable global growth and serve the needs of business and citizens.

15. We recognise the importance of ensuring our domestic regulatory systems are strong. But a globalised financial system also requires much greater consistency and systematic cooperation between countries, based on high and internationally agreed standards. Future regulation and supervision must promote transparency, guard against systemic risk, dampen rather than amplify the financial and economic cycle, reduce reliance on risky sources of financing, and discourage excessive risk-taking.

Regulators must ensure that their actions support market discipline, avoid adverse impacts on other countries, including regulatory arbitrage, and support competition, dynamism, and innovation in the marketplace.

16. To this end, we have taken forward the Washington Action Plan. We set out the detailed reforms in our attached statement, “Strengthening the Financial System”, and the updated action plan. In particular, we have agreed:

• to expand the Financial Stability Forum to include all G20 countries and to reestablish it with a stronger mandate as the [Financial Stability Board]. It will drive the development of common principles and standards of regulation, strengthen international co-operation between regulators and policymakers, and, together with the IMF, identify and report on the build up of macroeconomic and financial risks;

• to work closely and systematically, in accordance with the Financial Stability Forum framework, to supervise cross-border institutions and to complete the establishment of colleges of supervisors for all significant cross-border financial firms;

• to improve over time the quality, quantity, and international consistency of capital in the banking system. Capital requirements should not be strengthened until a significant and sustained economic recovery is assured and the transition managed to ensure that the extension of credit is not constrained. Regulation should limit leverage and require buffers of resources to be built up in good times which banks can draw down when conditions deteriorate;

• to extend regulation or oversight to all financial markets, instruments, and institutions, including hedge funds, which are individually or collectively of systemic importance, so as to limit the risk to financial stability from gaps in our systems;

• to endorse the FSF’s common principles on pay and compensation in financial institutions. These ensure compensation structures reward actual performance, support sustainable growth, and avoid excessive risk-taking. We have asked our supervisors to implement these principles;

• to take action to identify non-cooperative jurisdictions, including tax havens, and to stand ready to deploy sanctions to protect our public finances and financial systems. We have today published a list of jurisdictions that have not committed to the international standard for exchange of information on tax. We call on the Global Forum, the FATF, and the [Financial Stability Board] to identify, for the next meeting of our Finance Ministers, jurisdictions not implementing the relevant international standards;

• that standard setters should work with supervisors and regulators to achieve consistency of valuation methods and a single set of accounting standards;

• to extend regulatory oversight and registration to Credit Rating Agencies whose ratings are used for regulatory purposes to ensure they meet international codes of good practice to prevent conflicts of interest.

17. We instruct our Finance Ministers to complete the implementation of these decisions in line with the timetable set out in the action plan. We have asked the [Financial Stability Board] and the IMF to monitor progress, working with the FATF and the Global Forum, and to provide a report to the next meeting of our Finance Ministers.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f6f30eaa-1c88-11de-977c-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1

[Realism]

“In a classic show of brinksmanship, the leaders of France and Germany threatened last night to scupper the entire G20 deal - and months of work by Mr Brown and his team - unless the summit takes meaninfgul action to regulate financial markets more closely.”

I don't exactly see a properly regulated market as the end of capitalism. Left unregulated capitalism would simply destroy the markets.

[EBH]

to endorse the FSF’s common principles on pay and compensation in financial institutions.

Now we know where the ‘compensation’ noise is coming from. The rest of the world is setting the pay standards and contracts of employment for financial institutions.

[MyTwoCopperCoins]

I don't exactly see a properly regulated market as the end of capitalism. Left unregulated capitalism would simply destroy the markets.

I don't like outside bodies regulating private business.

Left to their own devices, companies would have been allowed to perish, for poor regulation and the survivors, bettered themelves.

With bailouts and external regulation, that feedback mechanism is destroyed.

[Tenacious 1]

...a London summit should declare an end to the unfettered capitalism that has plunged the global economy into recession.

They are at least calling it what it is. The next question is, "What do you call the system that should replace capitalism? Fascism or Socialism?"

[Realism]

“Left to their own devices, companies would have been allowed to perish”

Left to their own devices, corporations would become giants (big fish eat little fish) capable of dragging multiple countries down with them as they go under. How many people are employed in the auto industry and financial sector? Would letting them sink cascade into a long hard depression for the country? Or is it justified if you can forcefully drag them thru a dry period for a couple years avoiding catastrophe?

[The Duke]

Left unregulated capitalism would simply destroy the markets.

"Regulated" and "owned" are two different things.

[Realism]

“Regulated” and “owned” are two different things.

True, but if the aid wasn’t painful it would just be included into the companies yearly budget as an incentive to waste or always plead poverty.

[Polybius]

G20 leaders and ministers sat down to hammer out new rules for world financial markets today after a warning from France and Germany that a London summit should declare an end to the unfettered capitalism that has plunged the global economy into recession. ..... paragraphs 14 to 17 of the draft text - those dealing with "global financial institutions and global regulation".

So, the United States President is with world financial leaders discussing the end of Capitalism. Is anyone surprised?

You have quite a knee-jerk there, FRiend.

If the Ghost of Ronald Reagan had been elected POTUS last November, he would be advocating the same thing.

Do you really believe that a totally unregulated George Soros or a totally unregulated Bernie Madoff is the embodiment of "Capitalism"?

Just because it is proposed that unregulated butcher shops that have poisoned tens of millions of meat buyers across the country by selling rotted meat should now be "regulated" with meat safety standards does not mean that "Capitalism" in the meat industry is coming to and end.

It has, in fact, the opposite effect. The surest way to turn an entire country in vegetarians or to have the public demand Government take over of all butcher shops is to have a totally unregulated meat industry where every every rancher with a dead cow and every driver that has discovered a road kill can show up at the local supermarket loading dock and sell that meat to the supermarket so that it can then be mixed into the store's SuperSaver Hamburger.

In these past years, some ( A. total idiots or B. crooks that were getting rich selling this cr@p ..... pick your favorite choice ) were in the financial industry dealing in $400,000 mortgage IOU's they obtained from burger flippers at MacDonalds that they then sold on the financial markets as Triple AAA rated Mortgage Backed Securities while other ( A. total idiots or B. crooks that were getting rich selling this cr@p ..... pick your favorite choice ) were in the financial industry dealing in toxic Credit Default Swaps leveraged at 40/1.

That is not "Capitalism" any more than a Mafia controlled meat packing company deliberately mixing up diseased cattle and road kill into it's hamburger products is "Capitalism".

The reason the stock portfolio in your 401k has dropped around 50% this past year is because it was poisoned by the financial equivalent of tainted hamburger.

Allowing the unregulated sale of tainted hamburger in food markets or allowing the unregulated sale of fraudulent financial products does absolutely nothing to strengthen "Capitalism".

Quite the opposite. All it does is poison hundreds of millions of previously healthy Capitalist, destroy public confidence in the capitalist system and stampede a frightened public into voting a Marxist like Obama into the White House.

If you want "pure" and totally unregulated "Capitalism", you can find it today in some parts of Russia. Your business won't be very succesful there though because, once it makes money, you will be pushed aside or killed with a bullet in your head by Ivan, the pure "capitalist" (formerly a KGB agent) that now practices Pure Capitalism without any Government interference or regulation whatsoever ...... not even the regulating against the assassination of his other capitalist competitors or even regulations against selling rotted meat to his customers.

[Realism]

Well said.

[org.whodat]

You didn’t read the agreement Jorge signed last year did you????

[Polybius]

I don't exactly see a properly regulated market as the end of capitalism. Left unregulated capitalism would simply destroy the markets. .... Realism

I don't like outside bodies regulating private business. .... MyTwoCopperCoins

Wanna buy some great hamburger I have for sale? If you're interested in helping a guy that, like you, believes in pure and unregulated capitalism, buy my hamburger. The details are at my Post 17.

Your kids will LOOOVE it and I will give you a great price.

I sell it, out of the trunk of my car, for only half of the price of that over-priced meat at the supermaket that has this ink stamp on it.

Left to their own devices, companies would have been allowed to perish, for poor regulation and the survivors, bettered themelves.

"Good evening and welcome to the Nightly News on Channel 5. Tonight, we have good news and some bad news.

The good news is that the Polybius Hamburger Emporium that was so popular in the state has gone out of business after losing public confidence for selling what turned out to be hamburger ground up out of diseased cattle and the animals put to sleep at the local animal control shelters.

The bad news is that a quarter the population of the suburb of Lakewood has already died of food poisoning."

It is not the Government's business if your theater company goes broke becuase you put on lousy plays.

It is the Government's business of you sell a tainted food product that physically poisons your customer or if you sell a fraudulent financial product that poisons your customer's portfolio.