Perspectives on Presumptuousness

Braced for the lessons to be taught by 'Britain's' prime minister this weekend? He's already in America practising his prancing and preening, as sterling collapses towards parity with the Euro.

President Bush warned on Wednesday against abandoning free-market principles in the search for a solution to the financial freeze-up. Bush said the world "should fix the problems we have rather than dismantle a system that has improved the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world." (Der Spiegel).

The Foreign Minister of France, who has been meeting with President-elect Obama (wherever are you David Miliband? Wot no meeting?) noted:

"I am not expecting big recipes coming out of the G-20 meeting. But I am expecting, particularly from the new administration, certainly a road map."

In a round-up of German opinion Süddeutsche Zeitung adds:

'..see the Washington D.C. summit as the beginning of a process... Even if the next US president isn't there,it doesn’t mean that the effort this weekend makes no sense.Experience from the first worldwide trade negotiations shows that it takes a long time. After a decade of talks, the world is still waiting for the first global trade agreement.

A larger obstacle on the way to a new financial architecture is the role played by the US and Great Britain. They will have to give up power and influence. If the state seeks more control and if the finance houses and their managers have to take on more responsibility, then profits will by necessity be lower. In 2007, 40 percent of all company profits came in the finance sector. But the price bubble in real estate and on the stock markets can grow no further -- and the dreams of wealth held by many Americans and British will have to be abandoned. Herein lies the problem. Many lived well from the bloated financial sector...'

A view from Europe brings Brown down with a bump. America is not going to 'give up power and influence', it is not going to permit others to determine its financial and economic choices. All Brown's nostrums require just that.