The G20 is meeting this week in London to see what they can collectively do to help solve the global crisis. You may be wondering, "Exactly who, or what, is the G20?"
The G-20 is a group of 20 countries formed in 1999 for cooperation and consultation on matters pertaining to the international financial system. Specifically the countries on the G-20 are: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The 20th member is the European Union, which is represented by the rotating Council presidency and the European Central Bank. In addition to these countries, representatives from the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the International Monetary and Financial Committee will be there, and this year, the Netherlands and Spain have also been invited.
Just what exactly do they think they can accomplish? That is hard to tell, since there are so many countries represented from across the spectrum. The US, UK, and Japan have been encouraging stimulus spending as a potential to help curb the global crisis. Russia and China are calling for a new global currency, and they will more than likely expect the IMF to come up with that currency. The European Central Bank, unlike the central banks in the US and the UK, can not buy debt directly from a member state, although it can purchase the debt on a secondary market. The economic slowdown in Germany is hurting all of Europe, and the perpetual loudmouths in France have already threatened to walk out of the G-20 summit if things don’t go to their liking.
No matter what can get accomplished at the G-20, assuming anything will truly be accomplished, one thing is for certain: this is not a group of buddy-buddies. I am not going to refer to any particular country as the "Evil Empire," but we all know that Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia are looking out for their own interests, which most assuredly, are not typically ours. Mexico just put tariffs on 89 US imports after the US broke part of the NAFTA agreement with Mexico. France, although recently on fairly decent terms with Germany, has not always been the closest of allies with her neighbors. If memory serves me correctly, Germany invaded France in 1871, WWI, and WWII, and there may have been several border skirmishes between 1871 and WWI that I am forgetting.
The fact of the matter is, even though we have one global crisis, I doubt that a collective group of global leaders can get us out of this mess, especially in a 2-day meeting that begins on April Fool’s day…..
