Together Everyone Achieves More
The White House announced that it will host an emergency 20 country summit on November 15, 2008 to discuss the world economic crisis. The announcement comes after considerable pressure from both China and the EU. Among those invited are: Argentina, Brazil, the EU, India, Saudi Arabia, the head of the IMF, president of the World Bank, the UN Secretary General, and the Chairman of the Financial Stability Forum. Significantly, the White House announced the President-Elect would also be available to give his input. Hopefully, the role and media coverage of the President-Elect in this summit will not overshadow the very real problem-solving that needs to be done at this historic summit.
With the stock markets gyrating wildly day after day, down now but maybe up at the time this blog is read, anticipation of the White House’s economic crisis summit will hopefully cause a rally. Every fall of the NYSE and the other major stock markets cause economic shivers throughout the country and world. In New York, where the losses and the fear are most apparent, each dip in the indexes has a severe negative psychological effect.
New York is not the only place were layoffs are becoming a regular phenomenon. China announced this week that their economic growth has slowed considerably. As a result there have been waves of layoffs in the manufacturing sector, and the valuations in the stock market and real estate market have suffered significantly.
With any luck, this economic crisis summit will reach the goals that President Hu Jintao presented to George Bush on Tuesday evening: (1) stabilization measures with immediate effect (2) restoration of investor confidence, and (3) prevention of any further expansion of the crisis.
The only question is how to get there? What are President George Bush’s real goals in hosting the summit? As a lame duck, he can only have one goal: to salvage his reputation. Is that motivation enough to find a solution to the crisis? I hope so.
