Saturday 28 March 2009

Will the G20 meeting make a difference?

It would be great to think that the G20 meeting next week will pressage a global recovery. But is that likely? Probably not, unfortunately. Those major economies who believed that pumping millions of their Dollars/Pounds/Yen into their banks/markets/car manufacturers have done so by now. We need to wait to see if it made a difference, but second and third attempts have been needed already in some cases, and sceptics think it has been a failure. The resultant sovereign debts are almost incomprehensible, and repaying them will blight a generation.

Why would governments do more? They say that the alternative, of allowing banks and others to fail, would unleash financial disaster, but are the measures we are taking not leading to the same outcome, just more slowly?

Communiques at the end of summit meetings will never have been more closely watched than this one, but sadly it is not very likely to change the world for the better. In the meantime, there will be riots and civil unrest. Politicians will be boo-ed and hissed at, or worse, and the circus will move to another place. The unemployed will still be out of work, and the banks will still not want to lend to anyone.

My middle name is Jeremiah.

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