G-20 Countries Pledge Sustained Action

(CBS/AP)  Finance officials from rich and developing countries pledged to boost the role of the International Monetary Fund and make a "sustained effort" to restore global growth after a key conference that sought to bridge deep divisions on how to tackle the financial crisis.

The key priority must be restoring frozen bank lending through cash infusions and dealing with the shaky assets souring bank's balance sheets, the gathered finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20 countries said in a statement at the end of talks in southern England.

The statement did not back a U.S. push for concrete, coordinated efforts for governments to spend more money to boost their economies. It acknowledged the importance of the stimulus efforts already in place, and called for stronger financial regulation.

But it left details on that and other topics undefined ahead of a much-anticipated summit of their heads of state and governments in London on April 2.

Downplaying signs of division between Europe and the United States, the group agreed that there was an "urgent need to increase IMF resources very substantially," although they did not commit to a figure, leaving that task to the upcoming summit.

Behind the overtures of harmony was a game of "show me the money" reports CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips. While the U.S., Britain and others have passed huge stimulus packages and are promising more, some of these governments have been less willing to commit to continuing investment just yet.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was meeting British Prime Minister Gordon Brown today, wants to make sure the banking system is, in fact, shored up by the money that's already been spent before she agrees to spend more.

"It make no sense to pump more and more money in our economy whenever we haven't restored the confidence on the financial markets," said Peer Steinbrueck, Germany's finance minister.

Still, the meeting did establish some clear objectives, Phillips reports.

In addition to channeling more money through the International Monetary Fund to help struggling developing countries, the nations agreed that banking and financial rules should be tightened internationally to protect the system from the sort of meltdown it has been going through.

If there was a central message, it was, "We're all in this together," Phillips reports.

As U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner put it, "A healthy U.S. economy needs a healthy global economy. Our recovery will be stronger if the world is stronger."

The nations also agreed on the need for regulatory oversight and registration of credit-rating agencies, widely blamed for fomenting the crisis by giving strong ratings to risky securities.

"We're prepared to take whatever action is necessary to ensure growth is restored and we're committed to do that for however long it takes to do that," said British Treasury chief Alistair Darling, who played broker between Europe and the United States, said.

Geithner, who had pushed for Europe to match Washington's $787 billion package of spending and tax cuts, said there was "broad consensus globally on the need to act aggressively to restore growth to the global economy."

Geithner said he was pleased with progress made at the talks on Friday and Saturday, but noted that the crisis was still playing out.

"This is a very challenging period and this is still evolving," he told reporters.

Darling also said that the G-20 had agreed to a clampdown on the supervision and regulation of hedge funds.

"We agreed that stronger regulation ... was necessary to prevent the build-up of systemic risk," he said.

The group also committed to fighting protectionism and pledged to help emerging and developing economies to cope with the loss of international capital flows, an issue that they have raised repeatedly.

The four major emerging economies at the meeting - Brazil, Russia, India and China - had earlier released their own joint communique, calling for a bigger role in the International Monetary Fund. The final summit statement agreed that IMF governance needs to reflect the changed global economy and the growing role of developing countries.

In a move likely to be interpreted as a criticism of the United States and Europe, the quartet also called on the United States and Europe to improve information sharing and policy coordination to "ensure that macroeconomic policy is more balanced, proactive, coordinated and countercyclical."

The wider G-20, representing countries that account for more than 80 percent of the world economy, have been in conflict over over whether to use fiscal stimulus - big spending packages and tax cuts - or better regulation to drag the world economy out of its slump.

The run-up to the gathering in a luxury hotel south of the British capital was marked by a trans-Atlantic dispute, with pointed comments from Washington that Europe was not doing enough fiscal stimulus.

The International Monetary Fund estimates that only Saudi Arabia, Australia, China, Spain and the United States will introduce budget boosts worth 2 percent of gross domestic product this year, the level that U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner considers "reasonable."

European nations claim that increased spending on social welfare and unemployment is a form of stimulus that will support the economy - and makes the total European Union rescue package higher than the U.S. program.

The debate had led many to fear that the gathering of finance chiefs will fail in its task set a common agenda on key issues for a full summit of G-20 heads of state and government on April 2, a major concern as black economic clouds continue to roll in.

The World Bank warned this week that the global economy will shrink this year for the first time since World War II and the United States reported Friday that its trade deficit plunged in January to the lowest level in six years as the economic downturn cut America's demand for imported goods, dashing hopes of a U.S.-led recovery.

[WereNotGonnaTakeIT]

You get your economic forcasts from a book that says if you eat pork you will go to hell?
Posted by dragonwagon5

Where does the Bible say if you eat pork you will go to hell?

Wow, you're showing your ignorance.

[WereNotGonnaTakeIT]

Ding dong! The merry-oh
Sing it high, sing it low
Let them know the Wicked GOP is dead!
Posted by sockpuppet4

Did the Dark Lord of the Sith Hussein Obama teach you this?

[ubrew12]

As each country examines in turn how much economic pain they are willing to levee on their public, and how much they're going to try to pass off to the poor slobs across the border; this is the moment when having a great military is useful to having a great economy. Economic empire, here we come!

[sockpuppet4]

Once, there was a Wicked GOP
In the lovely land of Oz
And a wickeder, wickeder, wickeder,
Wickeder GOP, there never was
She filled the folks in Valueland
With terror and with dread
'Til one fine day from DC way,
A cyclone caught the house of cards that brought
The Wicked, Wicked GOP her doom
As she was flying on her gloom
For the house of cards fell on her head
And the coroner pronounced her dead
And through the town, the joyous news was spread

Ding dong! The GOP is dead
GOP old GOP, the Wicked GOP!
Ding dong! The Wicked GOP is dead

Wake up, you sleepy-head
Rub your eyes, get out of bed
Wake up, the Wicked GOP is dead

She's gone where the goblins go, below
Below, below, yo-ho
Let's open up and sing
And ring the bells out

Ding dong! The merry-oh
Sing it high, sing it low
Let them know the Wicked GOP is dead!

[mrthinker1]

The unfortunate part of all this is that when the government assumes too much debt and they cannot pay it back the Dollar will loose value. The Dollar will crash as a result of not letting the banks fail and we will see hyper inflasion like never before, and that will lead to more job losses and a world wide depression.

I am afraid that the only way out of this debt cycle is to have all debt wiped away and instatute a new currency not based in dollars, they will be worthless soon.
I just hope our leaders have the guts to get rid of the international bankers from our country and put the treasury back under the controll of congress as it was origonally established. The treasury should lend money without interest, the interest factor causes boom and bust cycles and only enriches very few and most are slaves to inflation that results from it.

[ubrew12]

IamInnocent said: "OK, so what's your excuse for the current administrations' tripling the national debt the next ten years? You got a clue what that's for? " I would say largely its to support a global financial system infected with tons of toxic securities and threatening now to topple over and take the economy with it. They are expanding public debt to keep capitalism from dying. That's a far cry that expanding it so you can play Santa Claus and get re-elected, which was Reagans and Bush II's reasons.

[mrthinker1]

IamInnocent,

Read my post on the last page about how money is created through debt. It sheads some light on why the government is assuming enormous amounts of debt because money is only created when debt is assumed under the banking laws that have long been established or they can borrow it from another country.

Since the private sector is swamped with debt to the point that it is not being paid back and the banks cannot lend any more for fear of becoming insolvent, very little new money is being created and alot of money is disapearing from the economy through bankrupcies. 90% of money is loan paper. When we fail to pay back a loan, the loan contract is destroyed along with the money it represents.

The housing bust is litteraly causing money to disapear and jobs are going right along with it.

Since tha last year of Bush II and now Obama, with the concent of Congress, they have decided to borrow, thus create money, from banks and other countries to try and keep new money flowing into the country because the private sector simply cannot assume any more debt and the banks also are not lending and money is disapearing from bad loans.

The Government does not have to do this, but those who are in power are too afraid to let the economy collape just yet. There sort of softening the blow and creating a new debt problem that can be delt with later.

Whether the Obama administration has another agenda, some think socialism or comunism, we won't know til they try and force it on us.

Every one reading this should read the letters from Thomas Jefferson. He was a very good student of observing how things like this work. The banking crisis were experiencing has happened to many societies in the past and we are actually living what he tried to warn about 250 years ago. Our soverenty has litterally been given over to the Banking Cartels that are based in Great Brittan, The same Cartels that we fought the revolutionary war to get awar from.

[Chris_Butler]

"G-20 Countries Pledge Sustained Action". This sort of statement means they have no clue what they are doing and have no plans past the next two weeks.

[Chris_Butler]

"G-20 Countries Pledge Sustained Action". This sort of statement means they have no clue what they are doing and have no pans past the next two weeks.

[ubrew12]

Reagan and Bush I quadrupled the national debt in only twelve years. Bush II doubled it again in only eight. Total public and private debt exceeds 300% of GDP, half again higher than it was in 1929. The government's unfunded liabilities, promises it has made to the American people but for which no payment source can be identified, now exceed $60 trillion, a literally inconceivable sum that can never, will never, be paid. The full measure of the nation's plight is revealed in Hillary Clinton's first trip as Secretary of State. It was to China, to beg them to fund Obama's new fiscal deficits. Without loans from China, the U.S. economy cannot be revived. The significance of this cannot be overstated: the U.S. no longer exercises sovereignty over its own economic affairs. That sovereignty now resides in the hands of China, the U.S.'s greatest long-term rival. The U.S. has technically become a colony of China. It exports raw materials and imports finished goods, together with the capital to make up the difference. Should the Chinese decide not to lend the trillions of dollars the U.S. is begging for, the U.S. economy will implode.