G-20 Review

| Thu Apr. 2, 2009 10:22 AM GMT
The draft G-20 communiqué is here.  The final communiqué is here.  Looking solely at the section on financial regulation, it's hard to see too many huge differences.  Regulation of hedge funds, which Obama was said to be resisting, is still there.  However, Obama was also said to be opposed to a greater role for international regulatory bodies, and he appears to have won that round.  The draft section that called for regulators "to supervise cross-border institutions and to complete the establishment of colleges of supervisors for all significant cross-border financial firms" is gone.

What else?  The section on tax havens got beefed up rhetorically with a single sentence: "The era of banking secrecy is over."  That's nice.

I haven't looked at the rest in any detail, but it includes about a trillion dollars in loan pledges and IMF support, but no specific targets for domestic stimulus.  That number could have been higher, and probably should have been higher, but reality being what it is, that's not bad.

And the big losers in all this?  Protesters.  The street wars were a big deal in Seattle, guys, but with every passing year your schtick just looks more and more pro forma.  Time to give it a rest.