A Waste of Time and Money?

The G20 get together, I mean.

No such international summit can be entirely a waste of time. Someone said, was it Churchill?, it's better to jaw-jaw than war-war.

On what it has done for the world-wide recession, the jury will be out for some little time. It could even be that the recession will have ended, or be well on the way, before the provisions agreed in London begin to kick in.

Fraser Nelson. in today's Coffee House blog and with his usual penetrating analysis, demonstrates that much of what G.Brown said at the end of the summit, was not new, and most of what was new was half truth or not applicable until further meetings have been held to determine what the sketchy proposals really mean. There will be squabbles ahead, once they try to move beyond the anodyne statements.

The IMF will get further funds, which could help countries in Eastern Europe which are on the point of collapse, but who will contribute these funds and on what basis? Brown's phrase "money will be available" rather suggests the problem.

So what are the achievements?

- To give extra finance to the IMF, and allow it to create its own money in Special Drawing Rights. How soon will this happen?

- Agreement to bear down on tax havens (Watch out Lord Myners and Geoffrey Robinson!). Much progress has already been made. Many have already been identified and "approached", and some have conceded that there must be less secrecy, at least. Little new here.

- Agreement for an all pervasive monitoring and control of virtually all financial bodies. There is little new here, except that it seems that there will be some supranational body to look over national regulation to ensure "compliance" and the regulation will be tough. (This could mean that London's tradition of innovation will be ended, which is the objective of some envious and unfriendly governments, - pas de noms...)

If you think through the above, and the expected waffly "do all it takes to ", there is precious little here for someone who is likely to lose his house or job in the next few months. More than one attending government head has said of the G20 meeting that it will take years before decisions bear fruit. So it may be in time for the next recession!