German Chancellor Angela Merkel sent a clear “I told you so!” to the United States and Britain at the weekend, criticising them in unusually frank terms for resisting measures that might have contained the current financial crisis. The conservative leader of Europe’s largest economy reminded her partners that she had pushed for steps to boost the transparency of hedge funds during Germany’s presidency of the Group of Eight last year. ”We got things moving, but we didn’t get enough support, especially in the United States and Britain,” she told the Muenchner Merkur newspaper. Merkel expanded on her point in a speech in Austria, suggesting that both Washington and London were only now coming around to her view.
“It was said for a long time ‘Let the markets take care of themselves’ and that there is ‘no need for more transparency’…Today we are a step further because even America and Britain are saying ‘Yes, we need more transparency, we need better standards for the ratings agencies’.
Germany had made greater transparency a key theme of its rotating presidency of the G8, which includes the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Canada and Russia. Berlin had expressed fears that hedge funds could threaten the stability of the financial system through their heavy reliance on borrowing to finance risky trading strategies. But it ran into resistance from the United States and Britain, achieving little.
Whether Merkel’s G8 initiative could have averted or limited the current financial market crisis if it had been successful is certainly debatable. But reminding voters that she had sought to address the problem as early as last year could help Merkel score points on the domestic front ahead of a general election next year. Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) rule in an uneasy grand coalition with the Social Democrats (SPD), and both sides have been trying to play up their own role as crisis manager in the current financial market turmoil.
Both Merkel and her SPD finance minister, Peer Steinbrueck, have tried to take credit for Germany’s efforts last year to agree better transparency rules for financial markets. SPD budget expert Carsten Schneider praised Steinbrueck’s efforts during Germany’s G8 presidency in a newspaper interview on Monday, adding: “At the time, the United States and Britain demonised every effort to agree more transparency and rules.”
As Germany’s election approaches, the “I told you so!” Berlin seemed to send to Washington and London on the weekend could turn into an “I told you so first!”-competition between Merkel’s CDU and her SPD rivals.
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Nancy Pelosi having an investigation of the very people she has been supporting for years. That’s funny. Throw them all out–wholesale.
- Posted by BobbyGreed destroys.
- Posted by ottiWhat we need is a leader who will start a revolution. We should take to the streets in a massive demonstration of protest and hold them accountable for their thefts and throw all of them out of office. They are all rotten, the Republicans and Democrats, and their candidates are just as bad.
The apathy of the people is incredible, what will it take to wake them up?
How much abuse can we take?
People rise up. Let’s start a revolt!!!
- Posted by Spas ModicThe crisis is clearly based on corruption and the lack of transparency. I agree with the analysis of independent presidential candidate Ron Paul who is the only candidate who actually understands the underlying problem.
- Posted by DanThe writing was on the wall at least three years ago. Many people in the US were getting concerned that things were going to go to hell. World banks were passing notes to get their affairs in order because there was a coming problem. This economic crisis was intentual and the bail out plan is just another coverup to steal more money from tax payers. Now that Nancy Palosi is having a full blown investigation, maybe the truth will finally come out. Just as corrupt Enron, many more this time may end up in a the cross bar hotel called jail.
- Posted by Doc HollidayOnly a fool (and a criminal on the inside of the profit ring) would be against more transparency. It is clear the criminal elements in the US and Britain have had the last two decades to pilfer the US and British Treasuries. This game is OVER, and they will be held accountable. All of their crimes are exposed on the secret, so-called Level 3 balance sheets that these large banks were not obligated to report. Well, that is now coming to light and these criminals will be exposed.
- Posted by EricIn the US, its kill the messenger. Look what happened to Elliot Spitzer when he tried to bring attention to the coming crisis in the mortgage and loans. He was destroyed because he was getting ready to blow the whistle on lending practices, and made the bankers real nervous!
- Posted by JonahMerkel is right. I say that as an opponent of her Afghanistan policy, and more than that.
- Posted by Magnus GöllerHowever one looks at this, the bottom line is the US is probably going down with additional massive debt, higher inflation, a worthless US dollar, and a flight of foreign investment from US bonds (at the current low rate). How can the US possibly continue all the illegal and costly occupations and invasions into sovereign territories and not pay the price. This collapse of the financial markets was planned well ahead with risk takers fully aware that the US taxpayer will socialize their losses. Fortunately this happened during the Bush watch and not with the next president. Indeed, the world is rejoicing at the demise of the US.
- Posted by ZapataFor gods sake, if at this point it isnt perfectly clear RON PAUL is the only hope we have, it never will be.
- Posted by General Mayhem BBBSeth and Nick, you must both be off your rockers. Forcing the citizemry to save the criminals on Wall Street is a joke. In fact, all it will do is allow the criminals to keep their ill gotten gains, and the economy is still going to tank. You guys should rethink your position.
- Posted by BobbyMystic the Democrats and Republicans are the cause of this whole mess, because they are bought and paid for. Only the wholesale removal of these corrupt criminals in the Congress and Senate, can change things along with total transparency as some posters have recommended. No more back room deals behind the backs of the hard working American citizenry. It’s criminal.
- Posted by BobbyThis women, along with leaders in other nations,(France,etc)have not been overreaching on anything. They have been warning the Western markets, especially the U.S. and U.K. as the headline says, to stop the phony financial dealings. The derivatives, the sub-prime mortgages created by the Clinton Administration as part of the democrats diversity politics, while they knew full well that most of the low income groups these mortagages where created for, would not be able to pay them. This along with the unmitigated greed of Wall Street criminals is the reason we are in the shape we are in.
- Posted by Bobby