World leaders end summit promising 'vigorous efforts' to stabilize global economy

[severdsoul]

WASHINGTON - Leaders of the world's biggest economies sought on Saturday to settle their remaining differences over an emergency plan to blunt the bite of the worst financial crisis in decades.

Presidents and prime ministers from the powers of the 20th Century joined the heads of new economic heavyweights such as export colossus China and oil-rich Saudi Arabia.

They sat down with their finance ministers for a five-hour meeting in a Washington museum, gathered around a large map of the world symbolizing the global nature of their attempted economic rescue plan.

Signs are mounting of a painful economic slump in many regions, with the euro zone slipping into recession according to data last week, unemployment climbing in the United States and elsewhere and emerging economies slowing.

As the meeting got under way, the International Monetary Fund agreed to a loan worth at least $7.6 billion as part of a bigger plan for Pakistan where foreign currency reserves have dwindled and the risk of a default on its debts has grown.

With President George Bush only two months away from leaving the White House and his successor Barack Obama choosing to stay away from the Washington summit, talk of a top-to-bottom overhaul of global finance has been tempered.

But leaders said they were close to agreeing on the need for changes including more regulation for the financial sector, where huge risk-taking on house prices, especially in the United States, backfired last year and triggered the downturn.

Bush, who opposes calls from some countries for sweeping new regulations in the financial industry, said summit leaders were looking for "a way forward to make sure that such a crisis is unlikely to occur again."

"I am pleased that the leaders reaffirmed the principles behind open markets and free trade," he told reporters before the talks. "One of the dangers during a crisis such as this is that people will start implementing protectionist policies."

"This crisis has not ended. There's some progress being made but there's still a lot more work to be done."

Saturday's meeting is expected to pave the way for more work in coming months and another summit in the early months of 2009 when a newly installed President Obama could consider potentially far-reaching changes to the financial system.

As well as new regulation, leaders are considering ways to open up global institutions such as the IMF to emerging economies whose export-funded reserve cashpiles have made them important economic players.

The leaders are also likely to spell out what kind of measures their countries intend to take to counter the economic downturn, such as more public spending. A new "college of supervisors" of financial regulators from many nations was among the ideas expected in the leaders' final statement after the summit ended late Saturday.

'Difficult' talks
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said expectations of low inflation created room for lower interest rates and fiscal stimulus measures. "These are tough talks because countries are coming from very different positions and we have to bring them together," Brown told reporters before heading to the talks.

"It's obviously important to move people to decisions today about what can be done."

He has been urging the G-20 group of leading developed and developing economies to act together to stimulate economic activity via fiscal and monetary policy means.

After leaders met first for dinner Friday, their finance officials worked late into the night.

'A new start'
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the document would say no financial market, institution or region should escape regulation or supervision, and the action plan will have around 50 measures to be implemented by the end of March.

The plan would include measures aimed at making the global financial system more accountable to investors and more transparent to regulators, diplomatic officials said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27727826/

Now we wait...

[olddragon]

Well, you know they are trying to help.
The wine they had for dinner was $500. a bottle.

[Max]

So what? $500 is a piss small amount of money. Would you rather have the most powerfull 20 people in the world eating happy meals and strawberry milkshakes? How about selling all their palaces and old government buildings and running the country from subway trains? Get real and dont try to score cheap shots at them. Leaders NEED to look like leaders aswell as act like them.

[olddragon]

So what? $500 is a piss small amount of money. Would you rather have the most powerfull 20 people in the world eating happy meals and strawberry milkshakes? How about selling all their palaces and old government buildings and running the country from subway trains? Get real and dont try to score cheap shots at them. Leaders NEED to look like leaders aswell as act like them.

True, Max but, what if you don't want to go the way they are leading?

[lycanox]

We haven't a choice.
The previous system has proved to have to many mayor flaws in it.

[severdsoul]

Sadly lycanox you are true, there is no real choice, they are going to do what they are going to do, and if we are lucky it will keep us from a deep world depression,
if it fails, we are all going to be in trouble.
There is a lot of it that spooks me.. But what are we gona do, we are not in charge.
Just along for the ride... buck up, it could be a wild one.

[Max]

I dont think theres anything we can do, we are just along for the ride, we have no say on who drives the car :(

[lycanox]

The most important thing is that we don't have 20 people pulling on the steering wheel in opposite directions.
Or that one maniac is steering a bus filled with 19 passengers.

[severdsoul]

*lol* lycanox, that is very true... reminds me of a bumper sticker i saw..

"grandpa died peacefully in his sleep... unlike the other 3 passengers of the car."

[Traveler]

There needs to be an entire change in the philosophy here.

A government is only as powerful as the people they represent.

The problem is that the common people themselves are swimming in dept. Do the math, Mortgage, car, credit card, student loans and then look at what the average pay cheque is. Already the people can't get out but when you add the interest on top they are sunk for the rest of their lives.

The people no longer have the means to sustain a dept economy and cannot take on more dept without default, hence the country itself is sunk because the people are.

When I first started work I was earning $198 per month and I lived very well. Keep in mind that I could rent a two bed roomed apartment in a good area of town for only $78 per month. To live that kind of life style here in Canada now I would need at least $3000 in pocket every month. That's not going to happen. The third world countries are able to pay their workers so little because their living expenses are so low. The west cannot compete because greed overvalued everything.

There cannot be any real recovery and all the talk is just that, talk

[perdition79]

There needs to be an entire change in the philosophy here.

The people no longer have the means to sustain a dept economy and cannot take on more dept without default, hence the country itself is sunk because the people are.

There cannot be any real recovery and all the talk is just that, talk

The current philosophy is fiat currency, which is not "money backed by nothing", it's "money backed by the perpetual labor of a compliant citizenry". It only works as long as the citizens are both working and compliant. Our people complied, but the rest of the world did not. Compliance will wane as our culture of complacence reaches its end, citizens will cease to labor, and the currency will fail.

Default is the only chance for real recovery, as long as another fiat currency is not put in place.

[SerenityV7]

CHECK these sites out - http://www.infowars.com/
http://www.prisonplanet.com/
I really don't think the economy will recover, because its looks like they're trying to build a new global economic system. The real problem here is the Federal Reserve System who is trying to set up a new world order.

[Abyssal_Worm]

CHECK these sites out - http://www.infowars.com/
http://www.prisonplanet.com/
I really don't think the economy will recover, because its looks like they're trying to build a new global economic system. The real problem here is the Federal Reserve System who is trying to set up a new world order.

Welcome to the forums Serenity. It is nice of you to offer up some websites to give us some information, but you should really be careful with the information you get from Alex Jones. He is not always fact oriented and occasionally posts stories that link to one site or the other as the source of the information. That isn't journalism at all. That is just self-promotion. Also, watch out for articles from Raw Story. They are just as bad in this regard.

I found the G-20 meeting to be a real circle-jerk fest. Everyone just sat around and came to the conclusion that something must be done, but they still have no idea of what exactly must be done. Simply switching to a new reserve currency won't solve the current problem.

[krakatoa]

Originally Posted by SerenityV7
CHECK these sites out - http://www.infowars.com/
http://www.prisonplanet.com/
I really don't think the economy will recover, because its looks like they're trying to build a new global economic system. The real problem here is the Federal Reserve System who is trying to set up a new world order.

Welcome here Serenity, thanks for the post, i know it really feel exiting, reading from these sites, but be carefull, these are not the media we rely on and even media are far from always true to what they say,

Read theses sites, and the Media and opinion from ordinary peoples like us and make your own mind, after that, i did that in the past, and i will surely do again, this is humain nature lol.

Have fun here and see you later Krakatoa.