G-20 summit: More like London 1933 than Bretton Woods 1944

[Joanne98]

15 November 2008

The G-20 summit being held in Washington today takes place amid the worst economic and financial breakdown since the Great Depression of the 1930s. But notwithstanding the rhetoric about the need for a new Bretton Woods Agreement and calls for the remaking of the international financial system, the summit will provide no solutions to the rapidly deepening crisis. On the contrary, in the absence of any coherent program, it may well see the divisions among the major capitalist powers widen.

The summit, which was called by outgoing US president George W. Bush last month, comprises leaders of the G-8 plus so-called emerging economies India, China, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Turkey, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, as well as Australia and the European Union. Together they comprise 90 percent of the world's gross domestic product.

In the lead-up to the summit, British prime minister Gordon Brown said it had to become a "decisive moment" for the world economy and provided the opportunity for a "new Bretton Woods"—that is, the equivalent of the conference held in July 1944 which laid the foundations for the post-war economic order following the economic devastation of the 1930s.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy, currently the president of the EU, has insisted on the need to "change the rules of the game in the financial world" and for another conference to be held in the spring to flesh out the details of the agreements reached in Washington.

However, the real prospects for the summit were more accurately summed up in a comment published in the British newspaper, the Independent: "What we have is a summit without an agenda, on a crisis without an agreed cause, in a country without a functioning government."

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/nov2008/bret-n15.shtml

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. Nicolas Sarkozy...has insisted on the need *for* another conference to be held in the spring.

Sans Chimp.