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WORLD> America
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Bush defends capitalism on eve of economic summit
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-11-14 09:24 The world leaders come to Washington with their own ideas for change. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and others are advocating a broader overhaul of financial regulations than Bush wants. The Europeans also want a pledge for concrete changes in just 100 days. The stated goal for this weekend is to examine the causes of the crisis and begin mapping out principles for a response. But Britain's Brown, on his way to the summit, declared, "There is a need for urgency." It was fitting that Bush's argument against regulatory overreach was delivered not in Washington but on Wall Street. His speech venue was venerable Federal Hall, home to the first Congress and within shouting distance of the New York Stock Exchange. There was freshly sobering news on the US economy: The number of newly laid-off people seeking unemployment benefits jumped to a level not seen since just after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Still the Dow Jones industrial average surged 553 points at the end of the trading day. Some of Bush's admonitions raised questions about his own past actions, including last month's big bailout law. Also, he is one of those voices from the right who railed about greed, saying in an unguarded moment in July that Wall Street "got drunk and now it's got a hangover." On Thursday, he defended his administration against charges from some leaders that insufficient oversight and regulation in the US contributed to, even caused, the mess by failing to raise alarms. Obama is among those who say no one was minding the people's business as the housing market plunged, credit markets ground to a halt and the broader financial system went into distress. White House aides play down Bush's differences with other nations, saying the leaders have much in common, as evidenced by the gathering itself. Bush's list of possible areas for agreement include: -- Bolstering accounting rules for stocks, bonds and other investments so investors have a clearer sense of the true value of what they buy. -- Requiring "credit default swaps", a type of corporate debt insurance, to be processed through a central clearinghouse. That would help provide crucial information on the parties involved in these complex, unregulated products. -- Taking a fresh look at rules aimed at preventing fraud and manipulation in trading of stocks and other securities. -- Better coordinating financial regulations among countries. -- Giving more countries voting power at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Besides the United States, the countries represented at the White House dinner Friday and meetings on Saturday will be Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea and Turkey. Those countries and the European Union make up the so-called G20. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said before he left for Washington that he would raise with fellow leaders his view that a system in which executives of financial firms are rewarded for maximizing risk "cannot be sustained." He said, "That's just dumb, it's wrong and it's bad." Trade union leaders from participating countries planned to join AFL-CIO leaders Friday in meetings with several foreign heads of state, including Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and with IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn and World Bank President Robert Zoellick. The labor leaders are calling for re-regulation of global financial markets, an internationally coordinated fiscal stimulus and balanced economic growth to address income inequality. |
