The main theme of Saturday's emergency meeting of world leaders in Washington, the worlds' economies are becoming more connected all the time and they are in big trouble these days. They have planned to get out of the economic slump, watch out for each other and let fast-rising nations help out. Our Richard Quest wraps up the summit from Washington. Richard, I understand that the summit there had the leaders where they did leave with a plan, tell us about this plan.
Well, the plan was detailed in extreme, it was some 10, 11 pages long, and it breaks down pretty much into a commitment, a recognition that something needs to be done now. What they called "to rapid effect", in other words help people who are struggling in recession, losing their jobs, countries going down the toilet, if you like, at the moment, now that talks about cutting interest rates and increasing government spending. But, for the financial industry, there was an action plan, and that was very detailed. It talked about regulation, accounting principles. It dealt with the reform of the so called Bretton Woods Institutions, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. I won't ramble on the full 11 pages of the document. You can read it out for yourself, cause I mean, that Just it is that the message went out: this is not business as usual.
Ok, Richard, we have to keep it rare here. There are 20 world leaders that are involved in this, will they all be able to work together to actually solve this global financial crisis? I mean there are times before when one side wants to do one thing and another side wants do something, is this actually feasible?
I think that was the surprise of the document. President Bush alluded to that. Gordon Brown, said it as well, when they decided who would be around table, how many should come in? When they decided that they weren't sure that if they had 20countries, to ever get anything more than an agreement, and whether it's tea or coffee. But in the event, they did manage to come out with this and I think that speaks volumes to the fact that developing world, countries like Brazil, India, and South Africa, they recognized they had a seat at this table. And the developed world, the G 7, Australia, Canada, they recognize that they are in deep, deep trouble. This meeting was an accommodation, if you like, of the necessity. It was a realization of the reality. It was a coming together of the practicality.
Ok, now, they will meet again in April to carry on to review their progress, we are gonna keep our fingers crossed that there actually is some progress by that time.
Oh, you are an old cynic or even a young cynic, aren't you? You're cynic, can you....it's dripping out, out of you. Look, the truth is, by the time we meet, they meet again in April, end of April, several things will have happened: their immediate response to the crisis, fiscal and monetary stimulus. We will have a good idea of how that's coming along. On the reform of financial markets, there, we will be up to see how much the finance industry fallback. Let me put a bit of cynicism myself in, when the finance industry, the hedge funds, Wall Street, the Citi, Asia, when they realize what's coming down the road towards them, like a speeding truck, they will stop fighting back. You will hear howls: we don't need so much regulation, we don't want this, we don't want that. Well, get over it, guys, those leaders, from what, I can tell by the body languages, I can tell by what they are saying, they are angry, they are frustrated, and they are annoyed, that they are having to deal with this, when they should be dealing with their manifesto, promises and pledges and spending money. They are pouring money into putting the fire out, when what they would like to be doing, will be building brand new buildings.
All right, Richard, we thank you for your insight.