Thursday 2 April 2009

G20 conclusions will make the dowturn worse


My Telegraph blogs

Posted By: Daniel Hannan at Apr 2, 2009 at 18:58:51 [General]

A trillion here, a trillion there: pretty soon you're talking real money. To see what a trillion dollars looks like, click ...va&aid=12754">here

The BBC is exulting in $1.1 trillion being "pumped into the world economy". But where the dickens do they suppose it is being taken from in the first place, if not "the world economy"? And where is it all going? Partly, in development aid: an expensive way of transferring money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries. Mainly, though, to international bureaucracies: you know, the ones on whose watch all this happened.

At the same time, we will spend a lot more on national regulation. So, let's get this straight: the organisations that screwed up last year, such as the FSA in Britain, are to be rewarded with more moolah and greater powers. Finally, as Nicolas Sarkozy put it, we have "turned the page on Anglo-Saxon capitalism". Under the guise of cracking down on tax-havens, we have realised the long-standing Continental ambition to have a global financial regime, so as to prevent pesky English-speaking states being unreasonably competitive.

Just what we need to stimulate growth then, eh? More dirigisme, more red tape, more state control, more centralisation. And the markets have risen. Will you never learn, boys?


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