Quote of the day
“A competition to outdo each other with promises will not calm the situation”
- Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, who yesterday opened up a new rift with Britain and the United States ahead of the G20 summit in London when she delivered a blunt rejection of extra fiscal stimulus packages as advocated by Gordon Brown and Obama. As European leaders prepared to meet in Brussels to hammer out a common position on the financial and economic crisis before the summit in a fortnight, Merkel insisted the focus of any global recovery plan should be on reining in the markets. “It is not time to look at more growth measures. I disagree with this idea completely. The existing measures must work, they must be allowed to develop,” she said in a speech.
Witanagemot Blogs
Although I think it is marginally beaten by the FT today, in its observations on the NAO investigations into Northern Rock, to the effect that:
“Rather than dismissing the crisis as unprecedented and unforeseeable, the investigation makes the politically toxic suggestion that Mr Brown failed to fix a regulatory system that he was warned was flawed.”
Angela Merkel seems to display the same sort of common-sense as Margaret Thatcher. We’ve got “Loadsamoney” in No.10 – who hasn’t accepted that the money has in fact, run out and so has our patience.
Ooooooooo, good one Helene. A worthy contender.
Boudicca, I agree with you, but apparently the suggestion that we need to give a fiscal stimulus time to work through the economy is totally lost on Brown and Obama – presumably because of the enormous political capital that they have invested in their enormous bailout packages.
“…apparently the suggestion that we need to give a fiscal stimulus time to work through the economy is totally lost on Brown and Obama – presumably because of the enormous political capital that they have invested in their enormous bailout packages.”
Does a drug pusher give his clients ‘time to work through their drugs habit’? No, he shovels more and more down their throats as fast as they ask.
Because he knows they will ask…
Brown and Obama clearly aren’t done yet, but the more news appears about the G20 the more it sounds like any agreement – let alone a major – is increasingly unlikely.