To Halt Slide, Apply Debt or Control?

[elleng]

Source: NYT

"When the leaders of 20 nations met in Washington in November to face down a grave economic crisis that imperiled them all, the air was filled with promises of a new era of global regulation intended to match a new era of global risk.

Nearly five months later, those risks look greater than ever. But it is a measure of the growing strains over how to manage the global contagion — for which much of the world primarily blames the United States — that the world’s major and emerging economic powers cannot agree on whether redoing a system created in 1944 should be Job 1.

In recent days, the White House has begun signaling that when leaders of the Group of 20 nations meet in London next month, the most pressing issue should be doing more to stimulate their economies through tax and spending policies — something that Mr. Obama can assert that he has already accomplished.

The major European nations, divided among themselves over the wisdom of taking on more debt to combat the global downturn, remain more interested in focusing on a new approach to financial regulation, the issue that they say sits at the heart of the crisis."




Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/business/economy/10global.html?hp