Monday
Mar302009
Will the U.S. be put in timeout at the G-20 summit?
by Christina Lovato, University of New Mexico-Talk Radio News Service
“Now the G-20 is not an easier group to get into a consensus, it’s very much harder,” said Jeremy Rabkin, a Professor of law at George Mason University School of Law.
Today at a discussion on the upcoming G-20 meeting in London, panelists expressed their concerns about the meeting, the topics that should be addressed, and the likely results from the meeting.
J.D. Foster, a Senior Fellow in the economics of fiscal policy at the Thomas Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies of the Heritage Foundation, said there are three issues at stake in the summit, the first being stimulus spending. “Should it be an international priority? Second, international institutions.... Should entirely new institutions of global governance be created? And third, underlying the both of the first two questions is the question of sovereignty. Should nations retain the basic right to regulate their own markets even if the result is that their systems of regulation differ?" Foster also said that at the summits they take on the task of lecturing one another usually on things that they themselves are not doing very well. "In this case we hope very much that the American president, President Obama, heeds some of the lectures of his European counterparts. It is a shameful situation to find ourselves in where we hope the European leaders are effective in lecturing the American president on the dangers of debt finance but that’s where we are.” Foster went on to say that people all over the world have the right to be angry with the U.S. “The Czechs, the French, the Germans, everybody else in the world is right to be angry at the United States and other governments engaged in this sort of enormous debt finance stimulus which won’t work, but they should be more than concerned; they should be furious. They should be furious because this is going to drive up interest rates at some point.... It will be affecting global financial markets,” concluded Foster.
Desmond Lachman, a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy, said “Europe to me looks like it’s basically in denial. Japan has run out of policy instruments.... interest rates are at zero. China is still counting on exports, really not being flexible on its exchange rate or trying to modify its economy..... You know that I think they diagnosed the problem correctly,” he said. Lachman went on to say, “I think what they have done is executed rather poorly.” Lachman expressed that the the fiscal stimulus package was poorly designed and that the Geithner plan is not attacking the problem in the banking system, saying that the problem is not one of liquidity but of solvency.
Rabkin stated that he thinks it is very unlikely that we are going to see enhanced global governance as the outcome of G-20 deliberations and said that the G-20 group is science fiction. “The majority of these countries are poor and somewhat chaotic. The idea that you’re going to propose a elaborate system of global controls, and ‘China’ will say yeah good idea we really want people to come into our country and monitor how we do our regulation. I think it’s fantastical,” he concluded.
“Now the G-20 is not an easier group to get into a consensus, it’s very much harder,” said Jeremy Rabkin, a Professor of law at George Mason University School of Law.
Today at a discussion on the upcoming G-20 meeting in London, panelists expressed their concerns about the meeting, the topics that should be addressed, and the likely results from the meeting.
J.D. Foster, a Senior Fellow in the economics of fiscal policy at the Thomas Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies of the Heritage Foundation, said there are three issues at stake in the summit, the first being stimulus spending. “Should it be an international priority? Second, international institutions.... Should entirely new institutions of global governance be created? And third, underlying the both of the first two questions is the question of sovereignty. Should nations retain the basic right to regulate their own markets even if the result is that their systems of regulation differ?" Foster also said that at the summits they take on the task of lecturing one another usually on things that they themselves are not doing very well. "In this case we hope very much that the American president, President Obama, heeds some of the lectures of his European counterparts. It is a shameful situation to find ourselves in where we hope the European leaders are effective in lecturing the American president on the dangers of debt finance but that’s where we are.” Foster went on to say that people all over the world have the right to be angry with the U.S. “The Czechs, the French, the Germans, everybody else in the world is right to be angry at the United States and other governments engaged in this sort of enormous debt finance stimulus which won’t work, but they should be more than concerned; they should be furious. They should be furious because this is going to drive up interest rates at some point.... It will be affecting global financial markets,” concluded Foster.
Desmond Lachman, a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy, said “Europe to me looks like it’s basically in denial. Japan has run out of policy instruments.... interest rates are at zero. China is still counting on exports, really not being flexible on its exchange rate or trying to modify its economy..... You know that I think they diagnosed the problem correctly,” he said. Lachman went on to say, “I think what they have done is executed rather poorly.” Lachman expressed that the the fiscal stimulus package was poorly designed and that the Geithner plan is not attacking the problem in the banking system, saying that the problem is not one of liquidity but of solvency.
Rabkin stated that he thinks it is very unlikely that we are going to see enhanced global governance as the outcome of G-20 deliberations and said that the G-20 group is science fiction. “The majority of these countries are poor and somewhat chaotic. The idea that you’re going to propose a elaborate system of global controls, and ‘China’ will say yeah good idea we really want people to come into our country and monitor how we do our regulation. I think it’s fantastical,” he concluded.
tagged 
China, Czechs, Desmond Lachman, French, G-20 summit, Germans, Heritage Foundation, J.D. Foster, London, President Obama, Professor of Law at George Mason University School of Law, Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institure for Public Policy, Senior Fellow in the economics of fiscal policy, Thomas Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies, United States, global financial markets, global governance, japan, jeremy rabkin, sovereignty, stimulus in News/Commentary
China, Czechs, Desmond Lachman, French, G-20 summit, Germans, Heritage Foundation, J.D. Foster, London, President Obama, Professor of Law at George Mason University School of Law, Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institure for Public Policy, Senior Fellow in the economics of fiscal policy, Thomas Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies, United States, global financial markets, global governance, japan, jeremy rabkin, sovereignty, stimulus in News/Commentary
No Apologies Necessary: Obama's Upcoming Overseas Tour
While President Obama is scheduled to travel next week to Egypt, Germany and France, his administration has not found its foreign policy footing, according to analysts at the Heritage Foundation.
“This trip next week is going to be watched very closely all over Europe, all across the world,” said Nile Gardner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation, “Every statement he makes will be scrutinized very carefully to see whether he is seeking to further atone for America’s past, which I think would be disastrous for the President to do so. The fact is that President Obama is increasingly being viewed as a soft touch on the world stage.”
On the President’s last visit to Europe he discussed American arrogance and Gardner believes it was a “huge strategic error in judgment” for him to “condemn his own country on foreign soil.”
On this tour, Obama is expected to give a speech on foreign policy while in Egypt but James Phillips, senior research fellow of Middle Eastern Affairs at the Heritage Foundation, believes the focus should be on a comparison between the people’s future defined by the Islamists and a future defined by freedom.
The consensus of the analysts was that the worst thing Obama could do on his visit is to succumb to the idea of incessantly apologizing for America’s past and issues like what the Bush administration dubbed the “War on Terror” and instead step up to the challenges boldly.
Gardner said he believes the President “needs to toughen his act on the international stage, project strong international leadership, and stand up to both the threat of a nuclear armed Iran as well as a nuclear armed North Korea.” He added that this is the time for strong U.S. leadership.