Great Britain's Flash Gordon

Mark Phillips Reports On The U.K. Leader Hailed As The Savior Of Global Finance, And Vision Of Future

(CBS)  By CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips in London.

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The question came from a Swedish reporter in the back of the room. "Would you like to be called Flash Gordon Brown now, or just Gordon?"

"Just Gordon," said Brown.

This exchange took place as the British Prime Minister was taking questions from foreign reporters at a meeting in London a day after his government had poured $63 billion into buying bank shares and his partial-nationalization scheme was being credited with finally stopping the decline of world markets.

Brown, who just a week earlier had been fighting for his political life as he’d watched his poll numbers plummet for a year, is now having to adjust to his new status as The Man With The Answer. His template for addressing the worldwide market meltdown is now being adopted from Paris to Potsdam, Beijing to Brooklyn. "You have to act quickly and decisively," Brown says. And you can’t just add liquidity to the banks. You have to inject enough money so that you instill confidence in the institution and have influence in how it behaves.

That, he says, means rooting out irresponsible risk-taking, which has been encouraged by the bonus culture that has ruled in the financial centers of the City of London. From now on, Brown says, bonuses should not be based on short-term transactions; they should be paid in stock so that executives are encouraged to work in the long-term interest of the banks. What he’s trying to do is change the culture of The City where traders have grown to love the quick kill deal and the resulting instant Porsche.

In fact, Brown admits he’s trying to change the culture of the entire world financial system from the one that has been in effect since the end of World War II. That, he says, was designed to set the rules of business between sovereign national economies. Those rules no longer work in a globalized world where capital can run freely from one place to another.

“What matters,” Brown says, “Is what we do next.”

The restructured system he is now arguing for will require international coordination of financial policy making - a lesson being learned now -- and will require transparency so that everybody knows what everybody else is doing.

That the major European economies have embraced Brown’s bail-out-buy-out plan is a surprise in itself; both France and Germany are led by conservative governments. But that a Republican US administration is now also taking large stakes in American banks may have Karl Marx’s body spinning in its north London grave.

There will be some differences, though, in what these policies are called. In Europe, the home of socialized national health care and transport systems, the term ‘partial-nationalization’ is widely understood. (In fact the UK stake in one of the banks, The Royal Bank of Scotland, amounts to 60%.) But such terms do not translate well to free-market America. Robert Reich, the American economist was on the radio here this morning. What’s now being adopted in the US, he said, will look like, talk like and walk like - but never be called - socialism.

All of this is happening is because Gordon Brown came up with the comprehensive plan first and proved that, in the short term at least, it works. A life in politics, he said today, is full of ups and downs. You have to take them both with equanimity. And then Flash Gordon left the room. Quickly.

[liberty4you]

"Maybe something near the truth will emerge in a hundred years or so, when emotion''''s no longer such a factor."

Already considered...Does the world feel unemotionally attached to the JFK assassination? Counting down to the truth....

Or perhaps unattached to John Lennon? Jimi Hendrix?

I wonder why England and Europe put all the blame on America for the world''s problems without considering that their influences shape our foreign policies?

Watching BBC TV News in 2003:

4 Brits, one American reporter discuss Iraq WMD intelligence. Brits vote America was to blame, American hesitates--then collaborates. Painting the picture on the world stage to slander America and put the focus of the WMD''s

solely on the back of the USA was wrong and the BBC (Queen''s News) knew what it was doing.

Emotion no, intelligence yes.

[neo269]

Guaranteeing your investment with shares is not nationalization - as long as you don''t decide to become a longterm stockholder. Of course, the Democrats will do anything they can to strangle the financial markets to raise money.

[bradosol]

"The facts of the Iraq war are as follows........"
posted by Liberty4you
______________________________________________________

The trouble with facts is that they''re selective, whilst the "facts of the Iraq war" are currently inextricable from the feelings of the person selecting them.

Maybe something near the truth will emerge in a hundred years or so, when emotion''s no longer such a factor.

[liberty4you]

The facts of the Iraq war are as followed:

Desert Storm: Thatcher convinces Bush Sr. to invade after UN approval. source: University of Texas

Operation Iraqi Freedom: Shadow Foreign Secretary Jack Straw takes 12 year old California PH.d Thesis on Iraqi WMD to 10 Downing Street and writes the infamous "Niger Memo" that Joe Wilson investigated

and told his wife Valerie Plume (CIA) that the intelligence was fabricated. Source: The Guardian

Joe Wilson was smeared by Scooter Libby, Libby prosecuted for lying to FBI. Source: Washington Post

Bush Jr. tells Rumsfield that they might need to paint an Army spy plane UN colors and shoot it down over Iraq. Result 16 little words. Source: 2003 State of Union Address.

Gordon Brown or Tony Blair are not Bush''s little sidekicks. They are the masterminds.

[bradosol]

I''m British and not really a Gordon Brown supporter.

Some people think he''s partly responsible for the credit crunch, but I have to admit he''s done quite well in the current emergency - definitely better than George Bush and most other Western leaders.

As for Gordon Brown''s appearance - well, he looks to be overweight, he doesn''t go to the gym, he hasn''t got a suntan, his teeth aren''t perfect, but none of those things has any connection with the ability to lead in a crisis.

The most remarkable feature of this story is that it was a Swedish reporter who asked if he''d like to be called Flash Gordon. Such levity from Sweden!

[rugby_mark]

Liberty4you

Clearly you''re demonstrating the reason why the US government has had to inject $950bn into the US banking infrastructure to stop the country from falling headlong into a depression. A nonsense argument about nothing to do with the subject.

Grow up, recognise that no one country has the all the answers in a global economy and be grateful that for once, your government had the good sense to look outside its borders for a solution.

As for the comment in your first line about ''cocaine sniffing, hooker lovin'' , surely it''s a case of the pot calling the kettle black given your President''s past history?! Leave out the the name calling and concentrate on trying to find a solution to the problem.

[piercetheval]

OMG!...He looks like Dan Rathers'' "Long Lost Twin Brother."

[nangoat-2009]

...the Pound Sterling and Newcastle Brown.

[nler1]

Sarkozy from France is the coke-sniffer, we call him Narcozy

[nangoat-2009]

...God Save the Queen!

[usclimey]

The British PM is a cocaine snortin'''' hooker lovin'''' piece of rubbish.

Posted by Liberty4you

No fan of Gordon Brown myself, but please don''t tar the British with putting the nicompoops into power that you seem to do. Look at that Palin woman - wouldn''t make it in a P.T.A. in Great Britain. The Obama chap''s pretty good though - hope you have the sense to vote him in. As for socialism in America - I never thought I''d see the day. TTFN.