The G20 seems to be having a George W. Bush moment. Remember when Bush landed aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln back in 2003, arriving in the co-pilot's seat of a Navy S-3B Viking, to praise the US war effort in Iraq and then more or less proclaimed victory beneath a tower adorned with a big sign that read, "Mission Accomplished"?
Well the G20 seems to be repeating history with its statement. Check clauses 4 and 5. "4. At that time, our countries agreed to do everything necessary to ensure recovery, to repair our financial systems and to maintain the global flow of capital. 5. It worked."
It worked?? They must be kidding us. Read through the statement and then ask how are they going to enforce the changes. There are no enforcement mechanisms which means we can't be sure whether the resolutions will be implemented.
And there is so much more work to be done and unfortunately in the United States, the focus of Congress is on the much needed health care reform, not reform of the financial services sector. Yes, you have to give the G20 credit for injecting trillions of dollars into the global economy, but how will that economy fare once those crutches are removed?
As the BBC's Andrew Walker says, it's a complex financial world that is difficult, some would say impossible, to regulate effectively and if the G20 countries do all they say they will, it might reduce the risks to the banking system. But don't expect it to banish crises for good.
no comment untill now