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G-20: REFORM THE GLOBAL CASINO
Hazel Henderson
SEPTEMBER 2009 (IPS) - World leaders like France's Sarkozy, Germany's Angela Merkel, Brazil's Lula da Silva, and China's Hu Jintao are calling for the reform and downsizing of the global casino at the G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh, September 24-25, writes Hazel Henderson, author of Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy, vice-chair of the global Climate Prosperity Alliance and co-organiser of the Beyond GDP Conference in the European Parliament in 2007.
In this article, Henderson writes that these leaders rightly argue for restricting huge bonuses, raising capital reserve requirements on all banks and financial companies, curbing excessive risk-taking, and regulating derivatives that are simply bets, such as credit default swaps.
The entire system of global finance must be restructured. China has rightly led the debate over the need to phase out reliance on the US dollar and create a more stable global reserve currency. Britain's Lord Turner has called for a small financial transaction tax to curb speculation and downsize the overblown financial sectors. Further, a new level of insurance against risks of systemic financial crises can be created.
All these reforms must be enacted globally by the G-20 and by widening these agreements to include all countries of the UN. This more democratic G-192 can join with the G-20 in finally facing down the bankers, downsizing and taming the global casino and returning it to its traditional role of facilitating businesses, production, and innovative sectors of societies and in growing a cleaner, green, more just global economy that works for all.
(*) Hazel Henderson, author of Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy, is a vice-chair of the global Climate Prosperity Alliance, a co-organiser of the Beyond GDP Conference in the European Parliament in 2007 and co-creator of the Calvert-Henderson Quality of Life Indicators (www.calvert-henderson.com) She can be reached at hazel.henderson@ethicalmarkets.com
//NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN CANADA, CZECH REPUBLIC, IRELAND, POLAND,
THE UNITED STATES, AND THE UNITED KINGDOM//
(END/2009)
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