on the other hand, this is happening too fast for obama at any level, so the idea is probably to play for time and that's maybe why bush opened with the move he did. it defused expectations. or something did. maybe there never were much in the way of expectations before sarkosy started talking about refounding capitalism.
Quote:
Europe tempers G20 ambitions
By FT reporters
Published: November 14 2008 19:38 | Last updated: November 14 2008 23:00
European leaders scaled back their ambition for this weekend’s Group of 20 summit on the world economy on Friday, even as official figures showed that the eurozone had fallen into recession for the first time.
Conceding that the US political transition made breakthroughs unlikely, representatives of G20 nations played down the likelihood of a big announcement of a co-ordinated global fiscal stimulus to support the world economy, although leaders were expected to back the use of fiscal policy where appropriate.
Nicolas Sarkozy, French president, had said the summit could “re-found capitalism”. However, French officials acknowledged that no such language would appear in any communiqué.
Support for the idea of global financial regulators also looked to have evaporated in favour of a UK idea of a “college of supervisors” from different nations, who would review global banks.
“We have always said that this is going to be a series of summits; nothing is going to be solved overnight,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.
However, Hank Paulson, Treasury secretary, indicated that the US side was prepared for critcism from other countries.
“I don’t point my finger at any single country for anything because we have in many ways humiliated ourselves as a nation with some of the problems that have taken place here,” he said. “But I do believe the underlying cause when people look back and think about these things, has got to be huge imbalances – no nation’s fault.’’
The scale of the challenges confronting the G20 leaders was underlined by new data on Friday showing that the 15-country eurozone had fallen into its first recession even before the financial markets crisis worsened in October.
Gross domestic product in the region contracted by 0.2 per cent in the three months to September after a similar drop in the previous quarter. Italy joined Germany and Ireland in technical recession, defined as two quarters of declining GDP.
Underlining the scale of the turmoil, it emerged that the Adam Opel unit of General Motors was seeking loan guarantees from the German federal government and four states where it has plants in order to protect its business from its US parent’s worsening finances
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FT.com / World - Europe tempers G20 ambitions
meanwhile...
what do you think should happen with gm and ford?