Brown plans crackdown on world markets

The Guardian, reporting on the Labour Party conference with opens today, writes…

“Gordon Brown yesterday pinned hopes of reviving his premiership on a package of measures designed to tackle the economic crisis, including a drive for tighter international controls of the global money markets and a crackdown on the culture of irresponsible City bonuses. However, the prime minister also paved the way for higher levels of public borrowing, in breach of the Treasury’s own rules, following the tumult on world markets last week. These will be announced to the Labour Party conference today…

“In his speech to the Labour party conference today, the chancellor, Alistair Darling, will promise to do “whatever it takes” to rectify the mistakes made by the markets, but he will make clear: ‘Just as one government alone cannot combat global terrorism, just as one government alone cannot combat climate change, so one government alone cannot deal with the consequences of globalisation.’ “

Are these two just playing to the gallery in a bid for support or are they serious? At least nobody can criticise the British Prime Minister for being too modest in his objectives. It’s those nasty currency traders that have caused all the problems, with their greedy eyes only on those bonuses irresponsibly poured out by their employers. But who set up the conditions which rewarded such behaviour?  Who let a property bubble develop on their own doorstep? Who failed to understand the circumstances which led to the development of that bubble? Who failed to implement the one measure which would have addressed the problem at its root? It is easier to forget these questions and blame the present troubles on what is going on in Tokyo, or Riyadh, or Frankfurt or New York.

Of course, it now turns out that the UK banks had been importing trouble by purchasing bad debt from the US and treating it as part of their assets, but with the prevailing delusion that land is wealth, what regulation can stop them?

Britain leaders, of course, still imagine the country as a great power, thinking the country to be number three after the US and Russia. Is Brown thinking of sending a Task Force to punish the evil international money dealers? Is that why new aircraft carriers have been ordered for the Royal Navy? Read article here