The G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh provided what those meetings usually provide–rhetoric and not much chance. I wanted to highlight one point from the president’s press conference there:
Q: Thank you, Mr. President. Let me ask you, while we were inside this very safe and secure and beautiful convention center, some 5,000 at least demonstrators were on the outside. Some caused some property damage; others just shouted their messages, much of which had to do that while you believe the G20 summit was a success and represents a positive sign, they see it as something devilish and destructive of the world economy, and particularly the economy of the poor. What’s your response to those who are demonstrating and those who oppose this summit?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, I think it’s important just to keep things in perspective for the people of Pittsburgh. If you have looked at any of the other summits that took place, I mean, in London you had hundreds of thousands of people on the streets. In most of these summits, there has been a much more tumultuous response. And I think the mayor and the county executive and all the people of Pittsburgh deserve extraordinary credit for having managed what is a very tranquil G20 summit.
You know, I think that many of the protests are just directed generically at capitalism. And they object to the existing global financial system. They object to free markets. One of the great things about the United States is, is that you can speak your mind and you can protest; that’s part of our tradition. But I fundamentally disagree with their view that the free market is the source of all ills.
Ironically, if they had been paying attention to what was taking place inside the summit itself, what they would have heard was a strong recognition from the most diverse collection of leaders in history that it is important to make sure that the market is working for ordinary people; that government has a role in regulating the market in ways that don’t cause the kinds of crises that we’ve just been living through; that our emphasis has to be on more balanced growth, and that includes making sure that growth is bottom up, that workers, ordinary people, are able to pay their bills, get — make a decent living, send their children to college; and that the more that we focus on how the least of these are doing, the better off all of us are going to be. That principle was embodied in the communiqué that was issued.
Respectfully, Mr. President, there is no such thing as the "free market". It is a marketing phrase, in fact. If we really want to have change that people cannot only believe in but actually see and feel in their daily lives, let’s just start talking about the rules of the economy.
And, when we look at the actual realities of what was proposed by the G-20, there are a host of contradictions. Here is one–The G-20 statement calls for more global regulation, but it also calls for an expansion of the so-called Doha round, which is designed to encourage the integration of world economies on the basis, in my humble opinion, of favoring corporate and investment rights over a stable living standard. If the G-20 is serious about setting up new financial sector regulation, then, it has to dramatically gut its own 1999 Financial Service Agreement (FSA), which opened the door for mindless financial service deregulation that helped cause the recent financial crisis. Which do we think will happen?
