If the reports below are any indication of what can be expected from the G20 summit in London this week anyone skeptical of good news resulting will not be disappointed. It is likely the optimistic expectations suggested by President Obama of the US and Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain will not come to fruition.
Apparently those in charge of releasing a collective statement for leaders in attendance are having difficulty deciding what to say. After embarrassing leaks and reports of numerous revisions this may demonstrate the feeble performance yet to appear from the world’s, ah hem, leaders.
Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com
The Times understands that the money will come in three separate packages.
The first are new lines of credt worth more than $100 billion to encourage countries to trade more.
The second is a possible tripling to $750 billion in the resources held by the International Monetary Fund to rescue struggling economies. The extra money will come from Japan, the EU, China and others.
The third is a one-off allocation of “special drawing rights” that enable countries to swap their own currencies for IMF backed resources.The effect is to give those countries more confidence to deplete their reserves and expand.
The report above is from the Times and the one below from the Telegraph (UK)
A version that surfaced in Germany last week appeared to show that leaders are still not agreeing on what to say about “fiscal stimulus” measures to boost economic activity by borrowing.
British officials have insisted that that the German leak was out of date and failed to reflect the intense negotiations carried out by “sherpas” and other officials ahead of the actual summit.
In fact, the text being circulated in London today commits leaders only to make “the scale of sustained effort necessary to restore growth” and contains no detail about the size and type of stimulus countries should undertake.
For a little entertainment you may wish to follow the link from the excerpt below.
Apr 2nd 2009
From Economist.com
On the barricades and behind the cameras in London
OUR day of covering the protests starts with a failure: the Whitechapel Anarchist Group, whom we had emailed about interviewing, fail to answer their phone (too busy preparing to spread mayhem if other press reports are to be believed, though their blog huffily decries these accounts). At 7am, the City is quiet. Work traffic is light for a weekday, and my camera-wielding colleague and I are keen to get shots of the City prepared for protests, so set off looking for banks and offices that have shut for the day. HBOS and Halifax both sport locked doors, but security guards prevent us from filming. Frustrated, we head toward London Bridge where one of the marches is due to start.
Seriously: “Send in the Clowns” on Queenzbop playlist (Michelle Malkin)
This entry was posted on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 at 2:08 pm and is filed under Money Matters, wordpress, United States, Russia, Britain, France, China, obama, Foreign Affairs, Japan, Germany, Gordon Brown.
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