http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7731139.stm

15 November 2008

Global leaders at the G20 financial summit in Washington have pledged to work together to restore global growth. They said they were determined to work together to achieve "needed reforms" in the world's financial systems. In their joint closing statement, leaders said the reforms would only be successful, if they were "grounded in a commitment to free market principles".

The meeting brought together leading industrial powers, such as the US, Japan and Germany, and also emerging market countries such as China, India, Argentina, Brazil and others - representing 85% of the world economy. For the leading emerging economies, the significance of this G20 summit was clear - they now have to be taken into consideration in the management of the global economy. Brazil's President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, said: "We are talking about the G20 because the G8 doesn't have any more reason to exist."

In his address at the end of the summit, Mr Bush said there was no doubt that the financial crisis facing the United States and many other countries was a severe one. He said it had even been conceivable that the US "could go into a depression greater than the Great Depression". "We are adapting our financial systems to the realities of the 21st century," he said.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the global financial structures created at the end of WWII were now inadequate. "It will be necessary to rebuild the whole international financial architecture, make it open and fair, effective and legitimate".

The Great Depression? Been there, done that, no thanks. The outlook so far is to suffer through another great depression, massive public works, instigate conflict, consolidate economies, and then emerge through the aftermath to merely repeat the same growth mantra bullshit in the new world order. The perpetual-growth economic structure reached a growth limit, and the outcome is now real time. It was bound to happen, nothing grows forever. And even if it were to recover tomorrow, its collapse is still just a matter of time. What concept propagates this unrealistic growth mantra, and by what financial mechanism is this concept put in place? And what should the correction actually entail? Recognize the flaw in the current form of money, and then start considering other form[s] of money. Otherwise, repeat the past, perpetuate the cycle.