Stock Preacher

Leaders of the G-20 nations are expected to reaffirm their pledges to promote Free Trade at the upcoming Pittsburgh summit, as protectionism has proven to be an obstacle to world economic recovery.

“The temperature is rising, creeping protectionism is reaching a dangerous zone,” World Bank President Robert Zoellick said last week. “Actions and announcements of new barriers not only block trade and could impede a fragile recovery, but they risk frightening skittish financial markets,” he continued. At the G-20 summit in London last April, leaders pledged to “refrain from raising new barriers to investment to trade in good sand services, imposing new export restrictions. … We extend this pledge to the end of 2010.” But G-20 members have passed more than 100 “blatantly discriminatory measures,” according to a recent report by Global Trade Alert. GTA is a team of trade analysts backed by the World Bank and the UK government. Read more

Popularity: unranked [?]

US banks are looking to capitalize on strong Q-1 results and the end of the government “stress tests” to raise capital and rebuild investor confidence in the battered sector. Goldman Sachs is finalizing a plan to raise billions of dollars in the capital markets, a step that could pave the way for it to repay US$10B in government cash Successfully raising the funds could satisfy what has become an unofficial condition of being allowed to repay government loans, as government officials have told banks that they also need to demonstrate that they have solid investor support. Goldman had around UD$111B of cash and cash-equivalent securities in December 2008 The plans to repay the bail out money soon may be threatening to banks still in need of help, a list that could include Citigroup or Bank of America, as it would draw a distinct line between healthy and unhealthy institutions.

Popularity: 5% [?]

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development said on Friday that it regretted Switzerland’s decision to veto part of the OECD’s budget in a dispute over bank secrecy in the Alpine tax haven.

World leaders agreed at the recent G-20 summit to crack down on tax fraud and asked the OECD to publish lists of tax havens. Switzerland landed on a list of financial centers that have yet to deliver on pledges to meet international standards of bank information disclosure.

“The OECD acted in good faith,” OECD chief Angel Gurria said in a letter to Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz, a copy of which was released to journalists.

Popularity: 4% [?]

At the end of Obama’s press conference following the Group of 20 Summit last Thursday, a large crowd of journalists did something journalists never do: they gave a politician a standing ovation.

In a week that began with a flurry of meetings between the US president and his counterparts from China, Russia, India, Saudi Arabia, Britain and others, and ends with Saturday’s NATO summit, the media’s uncharacteristic behavior might easily be forgotten. However, it will likely linger because it matched a sincere response over and above the supplication shown towards any occupant of the White House by the leaders of the G-20 countries.

The same cerebral and low-key approach used by President Obama in dealings with fellow leaders came out in often lengthy, but nuanced, answers to questions. “He actually answered the questions he was asked,” says one startled Asian reporter. President Obama he is being accorded high ratings from almost every quarter barring his conservative critics in the USA. In part, this comes because of the contrast Mr Obama strikes with the widely derided George W. Bush. Partly it has been prompted by the celebrity cult the new leader has generated in the US. But most of all, it is about Mr Obama’s unusual approach to foreigners. “I have come to listen, not to lecture,” he said several times this week.

Much of the time he appeared to mean it. The least expected endorsement came from Russia’s president Medvedev, who until he met President Obama had developed a taste for rubbing Americans the wrong way. But last Wednesday the Russian president unexpectedly invited him to visit this July, observing that Moscow’s warm weather that month would reflect the new warmth in US-Russian relations, Mr Medvedev said: “After this meeting, I am far more optimistic about the successful development of our relations and would like to thank President Obama for this opportunity.” Mark-to-Market Rule Gives More Clarity

Popularity: 5% [?]

The Group of Seven, convened again in Rome, has ceding its traditional power to rebuild the world economy to a broader body of governments that now wield greater sway over global growth., the Group of Twenty. The U.S. Treasury Secretary and European Central Bank President joined their G-7 counterparts, for the discussions but it is the G-20 that now occupies the responsibility in responding to the world financial crisis.

The shift in influence to the G-20, whose members range from the USA to China to Saudi Arabia, reflects the fact that industrial nations alone lack the resources to fix the world’s economic problems. That curbs the G-7’s scope to deliver new initiatives this week, say economists and former officials. “The world has changed,” says Paul Martin, Canada’s former prime and finance minister who attended G-7 meetings and helped establish the G-20 a decade ago. “The G-20 reflects the realities of the global economy. Its finance ministers are becoming the dominant policy-making body.”

Popularity: 6% [?]

President Bush today will urge the G-20 leaders not to abandon principles of free market capitalism as they seek a way out of an international financial crisis, calling it the “best system” for delivering growth. In a speech in New York before the weekend meetings among leaders from the G-20 nations, Bush will say policy makers “should fix the problems we have rather than dismantle a system that has improved the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world,” according to statement released by the White House.

Popularity: 2% [?]