Calls grow for a new model for global trade - by Robert Weisman
Never before have world markets been so integrated. And yesterday's concerted interest rate cuts by central banks in the United States and other countries from Britain to China was a signal that the financial crisis rippling around the globe has grown too big for any one of them - even the US Federal Reserve - to contain on its own. It also could mark the start of an effort to overhaul the global financial system conceived at the 1944 summit in Bretton Woods, N.H., which set the rules of international commerce for industrial countries."There's going to be a large push for re-regulation," said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, a policy advocacy group in Washington. Wallach said trade pacts have undermined safeguards for workers and consumers worldwide. "We're seeing the fruits of three decades of deregulation of the financial markets," said Tonya Hennessey, project director at CorpWatch, an antiglobalization group in San Francisco. "Because of that, we've had this complex packaging of securities sold around the world. There's no choice but to go back to strong regulation."
Note EU-Digest: there finally seems to be a flicker of hope for a new movement away from the so-called "Free Trade" to Fair-Trade.
No comments:
Post a Comment