Rhetoric v reality

After the last hand has been shaken, the last pen put away and the last camera shot taken, what will have changed for the people?

Arguably very little.

Amidst all the pomp and ‘palling around’, Western global economic domination will remain.

This does not just extend to the two-tier G20. It also extends to the international economic enforcement architecture.

No one has proposed changing the institutional composition of the IMF or World Bank. The Governorship and the Deputy Governorship will continue to be divvied up between the United States and the Europeans. No one has proposed changing the World Bank's rules of engagement.

Change is for life and not just for crises.

Financial regulation is a knee jerk reaction that in the long term will hinder economic expansion nationally and internationally. If a change needs to be made it is cultural. But to admit this would require our 'leaders' to utter an inconvenient truth which they are not willing to do. This truth is that Oliver is just as guilty as Fagin.

‘Money, money, money’ is a good song for a musical but it is not a policy solution. That is why economic stimuli should be avoided. Much has been made of disagreements between the G20 nations but the facts suggest that economic stimuli have merely served to delay the turbulence.

Real people are suffering and rhetoric does nothing to save their jobs, protect their savings or provide them with confidence to invest and spend. For this reason let us turn off the rhetoric doll.