Obama Faces Disappointment at Summit (April 2nd Economic Meeting in London)
 

Obama Faces Disappointment at Summit

President Obama is likely to hear the word "no" a lot at the April 2 economic meeting in London.

By Andrew C. Schneider, Associate Editor, The Kiplinger Letter

March 23, 2009

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The G-20 summit won't give Barack Obama -- or the global economy -- the boost that both sorely need. The April 2 meeting in London kicks off the president's first major international foray since taking office. Leaders of the world's biggest economies once had high hopes of using the forum to revive global demand, break the logjam in credit markets, overhaul financial regulations and halt the growing trend toward protectionism. Not anymore. Now, they'll have to struggle for even a passing grade.

"It could be a big setback," says Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management. "The Europeans are being totally recalcitrant. It's a complete failure of leadership at the global level."

Obama is pushing hard for more stimulus to galvanize the global economy and pull it out of recession. He endorses the IMF view that the world needs a fiscal jumpstart equivalent to 2% of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the G-20 economies for 2009-10. The U.S. has already committed to 5.9% of GDP, but of the rest of G-20 members, only China and Saudi Arabia are willing to go anywhere near that number.

Europe just won't budge...

Article continues: http://www.kiplinger.com/businessres...it_090323.html

Article Source: http://solari.com/blog/ Catherine Austin Fitts website.