TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

World Leaders Meet On Crisis

ADVERTISEMENT

The Associated Press

Published: November 15, 2008

WASHINGTON - World leaders launched extraordinary summit talks Friday on the economic crisis gripping the globe, searching for ways to limit the current carnage and prevent future calamities. President George W. Bush declared that "billions of hardworking people are counting on us," but the summit's results were likely to be modest.

The most likely outcome: an effort to sharpen the world's eyes watching for the kind of dangerous investing that led to the present chaos.

Nearly two dozen leaders - from Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China, India and other countries - came to Washington, with almost as many different plans for action. The summit of both big industrial nations and developing countries began with an extravagant White House dinner and was to conclude today after a day of talks at the stately National Building Museum.

A new "college of supervisors," made up of financial regulators from many nations, and an early warning system to detect weaknesses in the financial system - both aimed at raising the oversight and openness of international markets - were among the ideas likely to be supported.

Bush has supported those types of ideas in the past, said White House press secretary Dana Perino, hinting that the leaders, whose delegates have been negotiating for weeks, were poised to agree.

The summit, meant to be the first in a series, has a two-pronged agenda: Discuss what might still need to be done to turn the world's economies back from the brink of disaster and explore ways to revamp the global financial system's architecture to prevent similar meltdowns.

Fearing a Wall Street plunge if the summit produces little, the White House has been lowering expectations as fast as other nations have been raising them.

"This problem did not develop overnight and it will not be solved overnight," Bush said in a dinner toast to his fellow leaders and their discussions.

As leaders poured into Washington, Bush warned of the dangers, in his view, of overeager government intervention. He said "reforms in the financial sector are essential" but strict regulation of financial firms or products would crush the global economy instead of protect it.

Europeans want to close loopholes that allow some financial institutions to evade regulation. They also want to ensure supervision for all major financial players, including credit ratings agencies or funds carrying high amounts of debt. They want a pledge for concrete changes in just 100 days.

At the meetings, leaders were expected to set up working groups to devise the details of their proposals. They also aim to set a date for the next meeting, likely to be held after Bush leaves office on Jan. 20 and President-elect Barack Obama has taken over. Obama is staying away from this summit but has designated high-level representatives to meet with leaders on the sidelines.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT