Prime Junta
RPGCodex' Little BRO
- Joined
- October 19, 2006
- Messages
- 8,540
I originally titled this post
"!!!SHOCKING NEWS!!! International conference not complete waste of oxygen!"
but decided against it as it's not really all that informative.
I'm surprised, and in a good way. This very rarely happens with international politics.
The G20 summit might not quite be the turning point that the Hoper-In-Chief makes it out to be, but it did actually accomplish a trillion bucks' worth of concrete action, and laid out a whole bunch of rules that may or may not eventually be followed. This almost never happens in conferences like this.
The trillion bucks the stabilization funds got will make a significant practical difference, but IMO it's more significant that countries as diverse and (generally) as intransigent as Germany, France, the USA, the UK, and China managed to pull together on it. My biggest fear about the crisis is that it sparks a cycle of beggar-thy-neighbor protectionism, which leaves everybody as beggars -- which is what happened in the '30's. This conference just created a precedent for real, significant, international, multilateral action. That is grounds for hope.
We're a long way from home and dry (or even "home and vigorously toweling ourselves off," as the immortal Doug Adams put it), but this is the first development since the crisis blew up that suggests that we might be able to pull this off after all.
(Oh, and -- credit where credit is due: this happened in no small part due to American leadership. And you managed it entirely without threatening to invade anybody, which is also a refreshing change.)
"!!!SHOCKING NEWS!!! International conference not complete waste of oxygen!"
but decided against it as it's not really all that informative.
I'm surprised, and in a good way. This very rarely happens with international politics.
The G20 summit might not quite be the turning point that the Hoper-In-Chief makes it out to be, but it did actually accomplish a trillion bucks' worth of concrete action, and laid out a whole bunch of rules that may or may not eventually be followed. This almost never happens in conferences like this.
The trillion bucks the stabilization funds got will make a significant practical difference, but IMO it's more significant that countries as diverse and (generally) as intransigent as Germany, France, the USA, the UK, and China managed to pull together on it. My biggest fear about the crisis is that it sparks a cycle of beggar-thy-neighbor protectionism, which leaves everybody as beggars -- which is what happened in the '30's. This conference just created a precedent for real, significant, international, multilateral action. That is grounds for hope.
We're a long way from home and dry (or even "home and vigorously toweling ourselves off," as the immortal Doug Adams put it), but this is the first development since the crisis blew up that suggests that we might be able to pull this off after all.
(Oh, and -- credit where credit is due: this happened in no small part due to American leadership. And you managed it entirely without threatening to invade anybody, which is also a refreshing change.)
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2006
- Messages
- 8,540