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Bringing it all back home?

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Stephanie Flanders | 14:53 UK time, Thursday, 2 April 2009

You can - without necessarily saving yourself. I suspect that will be the final moral of the for Gordon Brown.

It is looking like several rabbits are going to be pulled out of the hat this afternoon for a trillion dollar package to help the world. (See previous updates.)

There is plenty of real significance here - especially the general increase in Special Drawing Rights () and the new lending resources for the IMF.

You could say they are cheap commitments - as it happens, they aren't going to cost the member governments very much hard cash.

brown_merkel_getty226.jpgBut that somewhat understates the significance. The fact is that countries such as Germany and Japan have always been opposed to money for poor countries which has no strings attached. And they feared that a global increase in liquidity - like the SDR allocation - would be inflationary. To have persuaded them otherwise is no mean feat, even if the deflationary global environment clearly made it easier.

But here's the issue for Brown: how do you bring it all home to the UK? How do you show British voters it will make a difference to them?

If other big countries do more to boost their economies, that will help ours - heaven knows, we don't have much room to do more ourselves.

If the IMF can provide help to Eastern European countries in trouble, then that will lessen the impact of those crises on us (remembering how much they have borrowed from our banks).

And more generally, if the global economy doesn't recover, there is no chance at all that the UK's will.

But - with all that, there is no getting round the fact that the greatest beneficiaries of today's summit are not in a position to vote for Gordon Brown. When the leaders have all flown home, the story in the UK may be much the same as it was before.

Comments

  • Comment number 1.

    "When the leaders have all flown home, the story in the UK may be much the same as it was before."


    Unfortunately, the problem of toxic assets and bad debts is still nowhere near being resolved. The IMF estimates the total value of toxic assets around the world to be more than USD2,200bn.

    The G20 didn't address this fundamental issue. Increased funds to support developing countries is helpful in treating the symptoms of the crisis. However, the underlying cause of the crisis continues....

  • Comment number 2.

    I would most humbly suggest that our leader is currently working on developing the new position he will need after the next election, rather than protecting or promoting the interests of this country.

  • Comment number 3.

    Stephanie... For an economist you seem to have very little real understanding of how the UK economy really ticks.

    If other big countries do more to boost their economies, that will certainly not help ours because we don't make anything much we can sell them. What you're really saying is that we may well begin to provide more credit to enable our consumers to buy more of their stuff. According to Lord Mandelbrot that was not the plan because he wanted to have a more balanced economy i.e. we make more stuff..

    Brown and his City pals would therefore appear to have won the day. The bubble is going to be reinflated.

  • Comment number 4.

    although it is interesting to get a "human" angle through mr g brown, i am more interested in the real world implications.

    eg is this seminar going to set the world financial system on track for a sustainable future........ will the uk continue to be a well off nation........ can meaningful employment (globally and locally) be stabilised and increased so that average people can live happy and secure lives and support their families?


    there are important issues being discussed. my fear is that the pratagonists are so caught up in their own minature melodramas of opinion polls and re-election, that they will inevitably fail their fellow man. ditto journalists.

  • Comment number 5.

    "If other big countries do more to boost their economies, that will help ours"

    How?
    The only way they would help our economy is to buy the products we sell, and as our financial services aren't in high demand what can we sell them?
    More of our industries, have we got any electric, water or gas companies left and if we do is it in the countries interest to see all the money we pay for these necesities dissapearing overseas?

  • Comment number 6.

    Cutting through the intensional (note, aka mentalistic, non truth-functional) hyperbole and Hollywood theatrics, this, I suggest, is really a surreptitious effort to 'redistribute' the wealth of the cognitively more able and self-controlled in Liberal-Democracies, by affiliates of the Socialist International who will use their taxpayers in order to fund their paymasters' business ventures in the name of lofty ideals, which are empty spin given the true nature of human diversity and the inequality in birth rates and cogntive ability across the globe.

    Be critical of the rhetoric.

  • Comment number 7.

    After the big G'towe fools gold rush ,[the little piggease fought over market share of toxic waste now euphemistickally referred to as AAA's holes to ensure that their upwardly mobile bonusses remained close to their chests, believing their balls of racket science had insured that their boomerrangue pie in the sky was a one way ticket on the palookahville express for future pensionerds only] , it will be back to the BUNGLE IN THE JUNGLE simple brown bAAAir necessities of life[20 YEARS]

  • Comment number 8.

    I don't think the World's economy will 'recover' unless and until the assets (and liabilities) held in the bankrupt banks are made available to the general market at what ever price they will fetch.

    I also think interest rates must return to between 4 - 6 percent for a normal trading and business environment to exist.

    So far as I can see from what has been published so far neither of these two conditions have any likelihood of being met. Indeed so far as I can see we are still going away from a solution.

    It is the height of folly to 'call a bottom' for the slump when either of the above conditions have not been met. True, for example, UK house prices rose in March - BUT AT ZERO INTEREST RATES so unless it is intended for interest rates are to remain for decades at this level this is not a normal interest rate condition. Oh, and by the way, if Zero interest rates are intended to a be a long term condition how on earth will we get people to save at all, or indeed invest capital in any enterprise!

    We must remain rooted and get real again - this G20 nonsense is just frippery and rubbish as they have not produced any kind of plan that gets the World's economy back to stable operating conditions (see above) - rather their solution is the 1990-2008s only more so - clearly a totally idiotic idea!

    (But again what one should expect from the incorrectly and flawed education of the World's bankers and economists!)

  • Comment number 9.

    "But here's the issue for Brown: how do you bring it all home to the UK? How do you show British voters it will make a difference to them?"

    Quick trip to Washington for a "sub" perhaps?

  • Comment number 10.

    It's just possible that Brown & co are actually happy with that - that this week they've had a chance to do something good and they've gone ahead with it, whether it grabs votes or not.

    We all know politicians are partisan and can act out of self- or party-interest. It's worth remembering that those same people are patriots and do act out of genuine charity as well.

    Will he get my vote? Probably not. Does he get my admiration? Yes. I welcome good news, and good behaviour.

  • Comment number 11.

    Post a comment

    All posts are pre-moderated. What does this mean?

    It means that all posts are pre moderated by you,i hope this is of help to you !

    I'm all for learning on the job,but dont give up your day job yet!


  • Comment number 12.

    There is no agreement for surplus countries to increase their domestic demand. That is the keystone missing from this over-arching global plan. So any benefit to the UK, and there might be quite a bit in the end, comes too late for Gordon.

  • Comment number 13.

    Poor old Gordon. He throws the most expensive party in the world and the is upstaged by Michele Obama. I would imagine that the deal on special drawing rights will play really well in marginals in the South East and Midlands! Once again he is a victim of his own spin. Only weeks ago the air was ripe with talk of a global new deal and the need for greater fiscal stimulas. A bucket of cold water was of course poured all over this rhetoric by Mervyn King who was it appears in cohoots with the Chancellor. As it stands an outcome that produces a nice headline on the trillion dollars, a bump on the stock market for the day and the vain hope that some Obama "magic dust" will rub off on the dour Scot. Back in the real world another 1000 jobs gone in Northern Ireland and the impending mother of all crisis in the public finances draws ever closer. Still its good to talk.

  • Comment number 14.

    Wee-Scamp (#3) "Stephanie... For an economist you seem to have very little real understanding of how the UK economy really ticks.

    If other big countries do more to boost their economies, that will certainly not help ours because we don't make anything much we can sell them. What you're really saying is that we may well begin to provide more credit to enable our consumers to buy more of their stuff."


    That's what it looks like to me. That is, we, the taxpayers, get to put up our money so that the businesses which are making money out of emerging markets i.e really large countries with much less cognitively able people, who are breeding with very high TFRs and thus producing even more cheap, uncritical, child-like labour. It's no longer share-holders putting up the money, instead, it's 'the people' except these people do not choose to do it, the government does it! This is the at work I fear - i.e. the rose and fist Trots club. It makes out that it is caring and humane, but really, this is just PR, look at where the money really goes, it's a classic money pump, and its runs with the help of unwitting front men like Sir Bob and Bono etc as this appeals to the naive masses who now think they are ever so educated because half the population goes to university whilst the other half breeds an ever swelling underclass like those in 'emerging markets'.

    Sorry to those who are offended, but I fear this is really what these narcissistic psychopaths are doing and our largely feminised reporters don't see the big picture as they too are there for the fashion shoot and .....all sorts of other opportunities to display before the cameras.
    Narcissism is very much a female thing alas.

  • Comment number 15.

    No matter how hard you blow (i.e. increase the SDRs) you cannot inflate a balloon that has already burst.

    At the heart of these moves seems to be something schizophrenic. If nations need to draw on the SDRs then as a consequence they are going to have to look internally for means of fixing their own economies. However, our great leaders are still banging on about preventing protectionism. They repeat the mantra of protectioism worsening and prolonging the crisis to try and convince themselves that what is patently obvious is not really the truth!

    We cannot fix the world economy. What we can do is try and fix our own economies and then bring them together in a NEW way. To do that needs a protectionist stance and a lot of strategic thinking (probably beyond any of our MPs).

    There is an outside chance that this could be done in concert with our EU partners but I fear that things have to get a whole lot worse to overcome national 'senseabilities'.

  • Comment number 16.

    ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ News tonight followed the opening of a Top Shop in NYC by Mr Green (with hordes of narcissistic shoppers almost falling over themselves n their eagerness to be the first to puchase goods no doubt made for next to nothing in emerging markets) with a photo-shoot of Michelle Obama and Sarah Brown with fawning commentary on their clothes etc.

    Now, if that doesn't send a clear message of what the IMF and World Bank are going to be stimulating and curb just a little of that faith in lofty ideals of equality and transparency, nothing will.

    The more the nuclear family is undermined, and the more the sexes are rendered 'equal' in the Liberal-Demcoracies, the more narcissism there will be in society, and the more producers and consumers of rubbish there will be, i.e, it will just get worse and worse.

  • Comment number 17.

    I am a chartered accountant

    I just recommended THREE of my clients go into liquidation this week.

    All micro business employing 2-5 people.

    Today helps not at all at the grass roots level.

  • Comment number 18.

    #17 Ethalrocks

    This almost pains me to say it but - I agree with an acountant!!!

    Politicians, the Senior Civil Servants and bankers have absolutely no idea as to what the real economy looks or feels like on the ground. They work with and think about indicators of summations of rel-life economic activity. However, they will tell you that your experiences are wrong because they have the (massaged?) statistics to prove that their view is right.

    The major part of all UK economic activity is conducted by SMEs. Yet their voice is the last to be listened to when it comes to economic decision making. The G20 decisions will have no impact on their well being. Sad but true.

  • Comment number 19.

    re foredeckdave:

    The more the nuclear family is undermined, and the more the sexes are rendered 'equal' in the Liberal-Demcoracies, the more narcissism there will be in society, and the more producers and consumers of rubbish there will be, i.e, it will just get worse and worse.

    What absolute tosh. What the hell has the "undermining" of the nuclear family and narcissm got to do with the financial crisis? What "will just get worse" exactly? What are you on about?

  • Comment number 20.

    #19 leshowl

    Whilst it is rewarding to have one's posts responded to, on this occassion I can truly say IT WASN'T ME WHAT SAID THAT!!

  • Comment number 21.

    #17 & #18

    Unfortunately I can only agree with you. What has the G20 achieved for the UK? As far as I can work out we're actually going to give more money away (to the IMF).

    In the meantime my biggest customer has a review of spending today, where they want to further cut the budgets which were reduced to almost zero 6 weeks ago. With the previous cuts I was hoping to just make it through this year. This afternoon I expect I'll find out just how bad it will be, just in time for the weekend.

    In the meantime 4 other people who I also work with and know well have folded their companies this week.

    Saved the world Mr Brown? How about saving the UK and not just its' banks?

  • Comment number 22.

    They can fiddle around the edges but Hugo Salinas Price explains what will probably happen eventually. The creditor countries will want to get paid in real money.

  • Comment number 23.

    No. 22 soundmoney

    You forgot to mention that a return to the gold standard would involve the state banning private individuals from owning gold. The private individuals would be forced by law to sell all their gold to the central bank at a fixed price.....which would be a lot less than market value.

    Better sell all your gold now then, just to be safe.....

    Then again, why don't we just have an oil standard? All currencies would be fixed against the production of oil. At least oil is used for something.....

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