"We are rejecting blind faith in the markets." - Brown, Lula, Bachelet, Zapatero.

[Ghost Dog]

Meeting in the Chilean coastal resort of Vina del Mar in a pre-G20 warm-up, Brown, Lula, host Chilean President Michelle Bachelet and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said deep financial reforms were vital to avert a another financial meltdown.

"The whole world is paying the price for the collapse of a reckless venture of those that have turned the world economy into a gigantic casino," Lula told fellow leaders in a roundtable discussion.

"We are rejecting blind faith in the markets."

...

(They) called for global financial reforms at next week's G20 summit, but the U.S. warned against over-regulation.

/more... http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idINN2828967520090328?rpc=44

[truedelphi]

1. Good to hear some world leaders get the message.

It's a tragic shame our leader doesn't.

[Ghost Dog]

2. Next meeting (today) is interesting: South American - Arab States Summit:

The second Arab-South American countries summit, which is to be held in Doha tomorrow, is expected to seek a joint mechanism to deal with the global financial crisis as well as enhance joint investment and co-operation between the two blocs. HH the Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani will address the opening session of the summit along with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, who is also the head of the Union of South American Nations, and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva.

Among the other South American leaders who will be attending the meeting is Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez and the President of Argentina Cristina Elisabet Fernández de Kirchner.

/... http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=281670&version=1&template_id=36&parent_id=16

Let's see what statements of intentions come out of there.

The Union of South American Nations is one to watch:

The Union of South American Nations (UNASUR - Spanish) is an intergovernmental union integrating two existing customs unions: Mercosur and the Andean Community, as part of a continuing process of South American integration. It is modelled on the European Union.

The UNASUR Constitutive Treaty was signed on May 23, 2008, at the Third Summit of Heads of State, held in Brasília, Brazil. According to the Constitutive Treaty, the Union's headquarters will be located in Quito, Ecuador. The South American Parliament will be located in Cochabamba, Bolivia, while its bank, the Bank of the South, will be located in Caracas, Venezuela.

/... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_of_South_American_Nations

[truedelphi]

3. I am a fan of the lady in Chile, Michele Bachelet, who is their President.

Glad to hear that she heads up the delegation of the South American countries.

[Lasher]

4. The US warned against over-regulation.

Gotta be careful you don't load up on too many of those troublesome regulations.

:sarcasm:

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Meanwhile: "Brown's free trade plea 'puts millions of jobs at risk'"

War on Want attacks Gordon Brown's call to G20 leaders to complete Doha talks on liberalising world trade

Wednesday 25 March 2009

Prime minister Gordon Brown's call to other G20 leaders to complete the Doha round of international trade talks puts 7.5 million workers at risk around the world, according to a report out today.

The poverty charity War on Want said that millions of jobs in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Indonesia, Mexico, Philippines, Tunisia and Uruguay would be jeopardised if the Doha round were to be finally completed on 2 April. Millions more jobs in other rich and poor countries would also be threatened, it claimed.

The World Trade Organisation began Doha in November 2001. Its main focus is to liberalise global trade by lowering import tariffs, but it has been dogged by disputes between WTO members over how they are allowed to access each other's markets. The round has been stalled since last July when talks collapsed in Geneva.

"Our report exposes how trade liberalisation has thrown millions of people into grim poverty and threatens to devastate many further lives," said John Hilary, executive director of War on Want. "­Gordon Brown's free-market fundamentalism will condemn millions to a bleak and jobless future. Instead of repeating the failed policies of the past, the prime minister and the other G20 leaders must put people first."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/mar/25/dohatradetalks-internationaltrade

From a December 2005 speech to businessmen:

You told us that if we are to confront the challenges of globalisation, we needed to tackle the issue of regulation. So earlier this year, we accepted in full the recommendations of the Hampton and Arculus reports to cut red tape.
...
I want us to build on our advantages ... the determination of the financial services authority to extend their risk-based approach of financial regulation that is both a light touch and a limited touch.
...
At each stage we must maximize our flexibility and minimise the barriers – from overregulation to underinvestment – that hold business back.

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/speech_chex_021205.htm

From June 2006:

Progress if we invest in and nurture the skills of the future, advance with light touch regulation, a competitive tax environment and flexibility.
...
And I mean not just stability by securing low inflation but stability in our industrial relations, stability through a stable and competitive tax regime, and stability through a predictable and light touch regulatory environment
...
It was this pro-globalisation insight founded on our fundamental beliefs in freedom liberty and internationalism that led us as a trading nation to end mercantilism, then to repeal the corn laws, then to reject imperial protection and to lay the foundations for an open not closed international monetary system.

It said that whenever the choice has been between protectionism and the open seas, Britain has chosen the open seas.

Indeed at every critical point in our history we, the British people, have chosen to see the channel not as a moat but as a highway to the rest of the world, in other words to be global rather than insular, to be outward looking and internationalist rather than parochial and protectionist.

And as the City of London is already demonstrating, for our generation, it is time for us once again to proclaim how advanced industrial economies in the throes of global restructuring and change and developing countries too will benefit from open not closed economies and to demonstrate the new policies we will have to pursue to achieve this.
...
In 2003, just at the time of a previous Mansion House speech, the Worldcom accounting scandal broke. And I will be honest with you, many who advised me including not a few newspapers, favoured a regulatory crackdown.

I believe that we were right not to go down that road which in the United States led to Sarbannes-Oxley, and we were right to build upon our light touch system through the leadership of Sir Callum McCarthy – fair, proportionate, predictable and increasingly risk based. I know Sir Callum is committed to reducing regulatory administrative burdens and the National Audit Office will now look at the efficiency and value for money of our system.

Let me say I see no case for a European single regulator and will continue to reject such a proposal, just as we will resist the new and unnecessary proposals to harmonisation corporate taxation in Europe.

It was to recognise risk, reward effort and encourage innovation that we cut the long term rate of capital gains tax for business assets from 40p to 10p and cut by 3 per cent and 4 per cent the rate of mainstream and small business corporation tax. And I will continue to look not only at the competitiveness of our tax system but I have also asked HMRC to ensure the administration of the tax system – its consistency, openness and responsiveness - is founded on strengthened consultation with you and a better dialogue.

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/speech_chex_210606.htm

It's hard to imagine a speech that didn't have more blind faith in free markets, and that didn't praise "light touch regulation" more, than that second one. I'm am highly suspicious of Brown criticising free markets - he was so completely in love with them a few years ago, when these problems were building up.