Gordon Brown on the Pittsburgh G20 Meeting

World leaders meet in Pittsburg in three weeks to try to provide some sort of binding rules for international banking.  The hapless British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has, surprisingly perhaps, made the following ambitious proposal--which hearkens back to Keynes himself, and is, on that count alone, worthy of note.  Lord knows if he's serious, as always....





Brown's three-part prescription for the G20
By Lionel Barber and Philip Stephens
Financial Times
Published: September 1 2009 03:00 | Last updated: September 1 2009 03:00
A bank holiday afternoon at the end of August and 10 Downing Street is deserted save for a handful of aides. Gordon Brown, just back from a lightning visit to British troops in Afghanistan, has already left the summer behind.

Britain's prime minister, trailing badly in the opinion polls, faces a general election many commentators expect him to lose. The war in Afghanistan is not being won. And the government faces allegations (firmly denied) that the Lockerbie bomber was returned to Libya as part of a deal to boost British business.

Mr Brown, though, is convinced he still has a story to tell. The bright spot in his short and often troubled premiership has been his prominent role in co-ordinating a global response to the financial and economic crisis.

His chairmanship of the London summit of the G20 group of leading nations in the spring was praised. His grasp of the issues--from the technicalities of banking regulation to arguments about global economic imbalances - is probably unmatched among his peers.

So it is the forthcoming G20 summit in Pittsburgh that Mr Brown wants to discuss: a chance, he says, to build on agreements struck in London and cement global recovery. Of recent signs that the world is pulling out of recession, he is "cautiously optimistic". But it would be a "historic mistake to think we can now return to business as usual."

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