♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Credit Crisis,Europe
at 3/02/2009 02:51:00 PM
Gordon "British Jobs for British Workers" Brown is once again styling himself as an internationalist after his earlier attempts at channeling BNP-style xenophobia. Brown is about to go to Washington to visit Barack "Trillions in Deficits" Obama, and this has led him to pen a new op-ed in the Times of London (and shed the BNP stylings for now). Brown mentions Britain and the US joining up to beat the Nazis in WWII and the Soviet Union during the Cold War era before turning to current affairs. In the new millennium, climate change, financial instability, and poverty are their main opponents says Brown. Along the way, he channels Baroness Thatcher by making his own version of TINA--There Is No Alternative (to Globalization):Now, in this generation, we must renew our work together once again. A new set of challenges faces the whole world, which summons forth the need for a partnership of purpose that must involve the whole world. Rebuilding global financial stability is a global challenge that needs global solutions. However, financial instability is but one of the challenges that globalisation brings. Our task in working together is to secure a high-growth, low-carbon recovery by taking seriously the global challenge of climate change. And our efforts must be to work for a more stable world where we defeat not only global terrorism but global poverty, hunger and disease.Then Brown offers his own recipe for Fixing the World, with lots of Getting By With a Little Help From Britain and America's Friends:
Globalisation has brought great advances, lifting millions out of poverty as they reap the benefits of economic growth and trade. But it has also brought new insecurities, as this – the first truly global financial crisis – underlines. Globalisation is not an option, it is a fact, so the question is whether we manage it well or badly...
It is a global new deal that will lay the foundations not just fora sustainable economic recovery but for a genuinely new era of international partnership in which all countries have a part to play. This programme of internationally coordinated actions includes six elements:I am not hopeful that the two countries most responsible for derailing the world economy will be those responsible for fixing it up. If anything else, the UK and US think borrowing even more money to solve problems caused by borrowing too much money in the first place ought to do the trick. Only dummies listening to this ersatz Wilsonian rhetoric will provide London and DC with money to go on another jihad on fiscal sanity.
First, universal action to prevent the crisis spreading, to stimulate the global economy and to help reduce the severity and length of the global recession. Second, action to kick-start lending so that families and businesses can borrow again. Third, all countries renouncing protectionism, with a transparent mechanism to monitor commitments. Fourth, reform of international regulation to close regulatory gaps so shadow banking systems have nowhere to hide. Fifth, reform of our international financial institutions and the creation of an international early warning system. And last, coordinated international action to build tomorrow today – putting the world economy on an economically, environmentally and socially sustainable path towards future growth and recovery.
