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nerdgirl

The committee to save the world? (redux)

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During the Asian financial crisis of the 1990s, Time magazine ran a famous cover (well, famous in economics and policy wonky-communities … [geek]-:P). At that time the “Committee to Save the World” (in Time magazine’s assessment) consisted of Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, then-Sec of Treasury Rubin, and his deputy Charles Summers (later to be perhaps more infamous for his time as President of Harvard University).

If we were to have a magazine cover with a similar headline today, perhaps The Economist, who would be on it? Now chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernake and Secretary Paulson? Would it even be an American policy maker? Is it the G8 (G7?) heads of state? Is it the chief economists/treasury secretaries/variants from China, India, Dubai, Brazil, and Iceland?

See special report on the world economy – “When fortune frowned,” by The Economist’s economics editor, Zanny Minton Beddoes, from the 11 October 2008 issue. The author was also interviewed for an Economist podcast.

As far as steps to minimize the likelihood of a repeat of the factors that created the global economic turmoil, it was suggested that cautious re-regulation “with some humility” (the report’s author is British) is in order but more importantly, a flexible, multi-lateral, market-based (rather than government/formal international agree ) system capable of dealing with emerging structural changes (growth of emerging markets, globalization, introduction of new sophisticated mathematical economic risk methods) in the world economy is in order.

VR/Marg


Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

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